Butterfly Collector
by demondreaming
Summary: Cat's got a secret. A big one that hovers over her heart, wings fluttering. She's a serial killer, and each kill is another butterfly to add to her collection. Catcentric.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Victorious, but if I did, this would be on HBO.**

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Cat had a secret.

Actually, Cat had a lot of secrets. They crawled around her feet like caterpillars, and she'd wiggle her toes and feel them squirm around. Little secrets, soft and small. But she had a big one, and this one was a butterfly. She always pictured it as one of those big blue ones, resting on her chest, wings slowly raising and lowering, proboscis unfurled to touch her bare chest , beady black eyes blank.

It was a pretty secret. It made Cat smile everytime she looked at it, it's tiny feet shuffling over her heart, tickling. She'd stroke it's wings sometimes, recalling the memories, that powder coating her fingertips, and they'd be shiny for days, and eventually that glitter, that shining urge would coat her skin and sink in, and that butterfly would swell a little bigger, wings raised. Everytime she stroked it, motes of memory would flutter into her mind, make that urge grow, until she shined with it, until her bones glittered and she had to. Memory wasn't enough. This butterfly was too still, too silent. She needed it's wingbeats against her. Cat's secret? She was a serial killer.

She didn't think of herself that way of course. Serial killers were mean, were scary. They were bad. Cat wasn't bad, she was just curious. They were almost accidents, every time. Despite her dealings in it, Cat didn't really understand death. These weren't real people, they were toys. It wasn't her fault that her games made them grow cold and still. They were purposeful accidents.

The first time really was an accident. She'd been seven, he'd been five. Her daddy wasn't as rich then. They'd lived in a comfortable part of Hollywood. No pool out the back, but she had a foyer that was big and cool and dark all the time, chandelier shining like icicles in the high ceiling. He was her neighbour. Frankie. He didn't have a pool either, but his mom had bought him a rubber one, bright aqua and yellow, crabs and fish and whales frolicking around the edge. He'd yelled to her over the hedge that separated their yards, voice high and excited, and she'd crawled through a gap, branches scraping her clothes, scratching her arms. He'd already been stripped to his speedos, legs skinny and pale, skin beaded with water, blonde hair slick and spiked. His mother was in the house, he said, tiny fingers thrusting towards the upstairs window, shades drawn. She was in there with daddy. _Come play_.

He'd started running, feet pattering on the emerald grass, dirt the colour of chocolate in messy patches where the grass had died. The sun had beat down hotly, squinting Cat's eyes, and he'd turned to her, hands planted on his narrow hips, thin chest stuck out proudly. _Betcha can't catch me, slowpoke_.

So Cat had chased him over the spiky grass, pebbles bruising her feet, and he'd squealed and giggled and ran, Cat's fingertips slipping across his slick back, raking, her brunette hair flying around her shoulders, strands stinging her eyes. _Too slow, too slow_. He'd called behind his shoulder, feet twisting in the grass as he ran circles around the pool, feet stained with shards of green. Eventually he'd ducked her, panting a little, flopping into the shallow pool. It was only a foot deep, two at the most. Cat barely even got the bottom of her white shorts wet when she jumped in, careless, foot kicking his arm. She'd jumped on his back, a grin on her face, knees squeezing either side of his waist, body weighing him down. She'd got him now! He wouldn't run anymore. She put her full weight on him, hand pressing into the back of his neck, forcing his face underwater. She'd scare him. She could feel his thin ribs heaving, spine flexing under her bottom. She wouldn't let him up yet! She giggled, imagining the look on his face when she climbed off. His hands scrabbled at the inflated edge of the pool, fingertips pruned and cold, body twisting under Cat's bigger form. But finally he stilled, and Cat thought he'd learnt his lesson, he'd given in, and she'd climbed off, water swooshing around her legs. But he hadn't turned around, he hadn't rolled onto his back and spit water at her, and eventually she'd nudged his shoulder, whispering softly to him. It wasn't until she turned him onto his back that she'd started to get a creeping sense of wrong, looming over her like a shadow from a shape she couldn't see, couldn't understand.

His eyes were wide and blank, the shine taken from his pupils and slathered over his eyeball, making it glassy, like the eyes of the deer head her daddy had mounted on the wall in his study. His lips were tinged an odd colour, shades of blue bleeding under the pink, face drained of colour. She'd pushed his shoulder, told him to stop goofing, nervous giggle seeping out from her tight stretched lips. But he hadn't moved, lips slightly parted, dull gleam of his teeth from between them. And all of a sudden, a _no_ had bubbled up in her chest, like some great surge of gas erupting in a mud spring, spitting sulphurous fumes and belching, and she'd scrambled back, legs hitting the edge of the inflatable pool, rubber edge giving and spilling her backwards, a gush of water following her. Frankie's body bobbed at the movement, shoulder slipping back under the water to spin him around, form supine, face down, and she'd known then that the game was over. That this was bad, very bad, and she'd get yelled at and not allowed to go to the zoo, and she'd have to apologise, and apologies twisted in her mouth like snakes and always came out mangled and awkward.

She'd ran, panicked, back across the grass, worming through the hedge, branches like hands tugging at her clothes, telling her to go back and wake Frankie up, that it was just some joke he was playing that she didn't understand. Her heart pounded sickly in her chest, so hard she could taste it in her throat, blood rushing giddily, a feeling of terror, or maybe elation coursing through her. Some emotion that tickled her very nerves, and whether it was fear or triumph, she wasn't sure. She couldn't sort them apart yet. Maybe it was both. She'd won the game for good. She got the same feeling when she'd ridden that rollercoaster, and the car had gone up, up, up, and she'd seen the track drop sharply, stretch way down below, and the scream that had been ripped from her mouth contained both joy and sheer, raw panic.

She'd kept her usually talkative mouth shut, from the moment she heard his mother's scream. Cat had clasped her hands in front of her, wet clothes shoved in the bottom of her closet, new ones put on. A pink shirt with a fluffy white poodle on it. She liked this shirt. But no one ever asked her about it, beyond saying that Frankie had gone away, that he was in a better place. She even started to believe them. They seemed so sure he wasn't here, that it wasn't him she'd seen zipped up in a black bag, stretcher bumping over the grass, two tall paramedics with blue gloves and sunglasses moving so slowly. She'd tilted her head, watching his mother, her eyes rimmed red, fist raised to her mouth, and Cat had wondered if she was keeping that happy scream in too. It was an accident, one of those sad things that just happen. That mother should've kept a better watch on her child. That's what Cat's mom had said, eyebrows plucked thin, arched so she didn't have to make a concious effort to judge someone; it was already built in. That was Cat's first brush with death, and she was expecting something huge and scary. A skeleton in a big robe looming over her, scythe glinting. But it was nothing. She didn't feel sad Frankie was gone, she never liked him all that much anyway. He still wet his bed, and sometimes he smelled like corn chips, and he'd hurt her dog Oscar's leg once, and made him yelp. She didn't miss him.

It didn't take long for her to forget it had even happened. It became some buried memory in the graveyard of her mind. Until the day it was unearthed, so violently. It was so big, Cat had even looked for a big enough word for it, to describe this flash, this realisation.

_Revelation._

She'd had a revelation.

Her daddy was a plastic surgeon; one of the best in Hollywood. If a woman (and it was usually women), went to him once, they usually came back. Cat thought it was because her daddy was so handsome. He made the ladies feel good about themselves, kept their faces frozen at their most beautiful. He said he brought them back their youth, the happiest times of their lives for them. When she was eleven, he'd announced one Saturday that he was taking them all to a wax museum. He'd said he'd gone all the time as a kid, that it was what made him get into plastic surgery; sculpting the age from faces, immortalising someone, at least outwardly.

Her brother had pinched her in the backseat, Cat squealing sharply every time he did, their mother twisting with her sharp eyebrows telling them to knock it off. Cat didn't understand her brother. He spent all day in his room, buried in comics, in video games. He was older than her, heavier, hair black like her father's. His nose was shorter than hers, almost piggish, eyebrows thick and heavy, lips thick, a crudely carved caricature of her father's own smooth good looks.

They'd gotten there finally, Cat peering out the window at the large building, a gaudy sign over the entrance. She felt an odd excitement tremble in the pit of her stomach, to see all these frozen people. The first ones she saw were crude; were the oldest wax models made, their faces blank, hair not quite right, clothes sitting oddly. They were lifelike, but something about them crawled over her skin, made her shake her head just slightly, as if to disagree with some whispered argument that they were indeed human.

Her father's voice murmured in the back of her brain, softly intoning every step, every process that went into shaping these figures. All that work to capture a moment. A snapshot brought to life. The newer made models scared Cat. Not like the first ones had, with their eerily-human-yet-not-quite appearance. No, these ones scared her with their silence. She'd held her breath, her parents and her brother moving ahead, and waited to hear a breath, to see the wax figure's chests rise. To see them break from their still positions, and finish the motion they were captured in. They were perfect. And then her mother had called from ahead for her to catch up. If she stayed behind, they might just make her into one of the wax figures. That's what they did with the bad little girls.

Cat had stared at one in particular, the churning cogs of her mind growing febrile. Not a celebrity, caught in a pose for the imaginary cameras, but one from the horror movie room. Some were caught mid-attack, blood trickling over their cheeks, lips wrenched back in a silent scream. They made Cat's heart race, made her tongue run out over her lips and her fingers pluck at a lock of hair, twisting it. But this one was different. It was a woman, throat slit, great ribbons of blood starting to gush from the slash, body caught just as it started it's collapse. Her face wasn't terrified, she wasn't screaming. Her eyes were wide, reflecting the soft lights in the room, lips slack. There was the tiniest hint of a ripple in her brow, starting to fade as death took over her. Her knees were buckled slightly, jeans wrinkling, hands out-turned as if in a gesture of appeasement. Cat had tilted her head in front of this woman, fascinated at the expression on her face. This snapshot of death. It stirred something in her mind, a similar memory.

Frankie. His image bubbled into her brain like some balloon, let loose from a child's hand into the sky of Cat's memory. He'd looked the same. Eyes wide, glassy, limbs limp, like some marionette waiting for a puppeteer. He'd had that same slightly confused look, terror erased by death's gentle hands, smoothing away the lines and wrinkles just like her own daddy's hand did. Cat felt her heart lurch sickly, and that revelation burst over her, glowing and bright. It was perfect. This was... this was truth. Her juvenile mind desperately waded through the morass of he thoughts, trying to pick what limited words she had to describe this revelation. This was the true person. Smiles could fade, frowns could lie, but this instant, this dying moment, plucked away emotions and showed their soul. It took away everything, including humanity, and left this gaping hole Cat toed the edge of, trying to comprehend. It kept them forever as themselves, ripped away the curtain of influence, of change. It kept them perfect. Cat had seen, and only Cat, that last spark of life fade away, that truest moment that revealed Frankie's soul, and it wasn't scared, it wasn't angry, it was the most pure thing she'd ever seen. Her mind built constructs around this moment, skinned it and pinned it and traced every vein in the taut hide. It grew glowing and perfect, and she wondered vaguely what her daddy's true face was like, what her brother's was. What their souls looked like, in that very last moment. It was beautiful, this truth, and she'd stared back at the dying wax woman, even as her mother dragged her away, face exasperated. Wrinkled with emotion, despite her husband's efforts. Her mother came closest to this true self, the women who went in tired and came out blank came close, but they were just blank canvases, sheets smothering that glow of soul that Cat had seen. That fading light in someone's eyes, that odd tenseness of muscles. She wanted to see it again.

When she went to sleep that night, the thought played in her mind. She wanted to see that beauty, that true self, just once more. She wanted to see past the terror, past the joy, past the emotions that stained everyone's personality, and just see their true self. The same thing she knew God saw when they went streaming up to heaven, forms incorporeal. Just once more.

Just once.

**/**

**A/N: I thought I'd try something different. So after learning how to ride a unicycle while juggling pies, I wrote this.**

**Please let me just say, that I am not actually a serial killer.**

**I've only ever killed that one person.**

**And that other one was a total accident. He fell on my knife. Twenty six times.**

**Anyway, no convictions!**

**So review, or there could a lot of accidents going on soon, capiche? :P**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: This whole story explains why Victorious isn't mine.**

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The cat was a stray. Skinny, ribs cutting through it's fur, speckled tabby and white. Ears notched in a tally of battles fought, tail curling like a question mark as it padded over Cat's lawn, head turned curiously towards her, where she sat crouched on the cement, arms circling her knees. It mewed, voice high and cutting, before curving towards her.

It'd been flitting around her house for a few days now, unnoticed by her family. They didn't notice little details like Cat did. They kept their eyes on The Big Picture, whereas Cat always got stuck on the intricacies of life. They saw a lawn, whereas Cat saw blades of grass, knitted into the ground, spiking towards the sky, a forest for insects, a buffet for the small birds that hopped and fluttered from spot to spot, beady eyes trained on invisible things. A sharp stab and a head tossed back.

The cat started purring as it got close to her, bones rattling in it's thin form, sound echoing off the hollow walls of it's jutting ribs, amplifying the noise. Cat reach out a cautious hand, sunlight cutting across her wrist like a guillotine. She was in the shade, cement cool under her, on the edge of the sunlit lawn. The cat arched, rolling it's head over her palm, ears flattening, spine arching and legs swaying. She could feel the knobs of it's spine, like the rungs of a ladder, the keys of a xylophone. It gave a cracked meow, turning and arching into her hand again, purr intensifying.

Cat smiled, legs unfolding, soft voice ushering the cat closer. Cat wasn't allowed to have pets. Not since her dog got hit by a car. It'd been not long after the trip to the wax museum. Cat had rushed outside after the yelp-bump-squeal, heart thudding in her throat, spitting blood onto her tongue. The screech of wheels, a screaming engine, and Cat watched a receding convertible disappear into the waving lines of the horizon, before her gaze turned to the twitching heap on the black-streaked roads, lines of tyre-tread mascara painting it. Oscar. What was left. She'd jogged towards him, took him in her arms, touch gentle, his scruffy head lolling, tongue pinched between his teeth. She'd felt the blood wetting her arms, running in rivulets, warm and sticky. The slipperiness of organs, of intestines, jelly-like, sticking to her shirt. She'd set him down on the grass, gingerly, front of her top soaked. From a light blue to a messy, fur strewn painting, splashed with abandon. Cat had watched with curiosity as Oscar's legs trembled, a keening whine rising from his throat. He was spilling everywhere.

She'd searched for his eyes, buried deep in his tufts of hair, black nose bloody. Cat had tilted her head curiously, blood drying on her arms, smeared over her knees, even her cheek, where she'd unconsciously brushed. She'd leaned closer, forearms sticking to her thighs, warm and wet, the lighter smears fading to rust, cracking and flaking. His muddy brown eyes were focussed, terrified, and Cat watched inquisitively as his eyes had dulled, growing distant, wavering in their sockets. And there! There it was. It was faint in him, but she saw it. Like a little flash, without light. A shutter click. It was him. His soul. She knew it. And then his limbs stilled, bloody nose stopping its frothing, its bubbling from his breath, turning to a slow trickle.

Cat had heard the sound of a door closing, distantly, followed by a cutting scream, threads of voice fraying at the end, the click-click-clack of her mother's shoes tapping rapidly towards her.

"He's dead." She said softly, cast over her shoulder. Her mother's hands had fluttered around her like nervous butterflies, unwilling to land on Cat's soiled clothes. Her mother had asked if she was okay, barely cast a glance at Oscar. What _was_ Oscar, more concerned with the blood on Cat's clothes. The only time she noticed was when blood got on the tip of her white high-heels, just a drop, and she'd turned a disgusted gaze to the broken dog, body caught in the midst of a frozen explosion, organs half-spilled. He didn't matter now he was dead. The living were more important.

Cat knew that. Her daddy had lost a few people on his operating table. When Cat had been younger, she'd asked where they'd gone, and her daddy had laughed like she'd told a joke. But Cat knew where they went now. And once they were gone, there was no point to them. Daddy never talked about his patients like people. They were just wax sculptures who could talk. He looked at The Big Picture, and the big picture was money. They gave it to him, and apart from the moments their lives intersected with his, and he altered their path, he gave no thought to them. Her mother's Big Picture was things. Furs, shoes, jewellery. Appearances.

Oscar wasn't in her mother's pictures. He was a symbol of status, a fad. A toy she pulled out to show. And a broken one now. She'd turned Cat away, led her into the house, arms, hands, always an inch away from her. She didn't want to get blood on her hands. She'd told Cat to go wash herself off, before her voice raised, shrill and overloud, calling to the maid.

Cat's feet had found the stairs. This house was so tall. That's what she remembered most about it. It just went up, and up, and maybe it was because the stairs spiralled, but it made Cat feel like she was in the clouds, like she was climbing the beanstalk to steal the golden goose.

She'd stripped her stiff clothes off, letting them drop to the floor, sweeping her hair forward unconsciously and crossing to the large, angular shower, all corners and glass, tiles chilling her bare feet. Cat had paused as she moved in front of the mirror, a flash of red catching her sight. A bloody doppelganger stared back at her, arms slack, brunette hair tipped with red, a smear of it coating her cheek like Indian war paint. She was painted to her elbows with dark runnels of blood, more of it smearing where her arms brushed against her torso in her movements. It stained her thighs, a bloody premonition of womanhood, dribbled down her leg. It smelled like dusty bronze when she lifted a hand to her nose, sniffing at the sticky, globby paint that scrawled over her body; Oscar's last message.

She'd twisted her lips, hollow eyes meeting her own in the mirror, before her tongue had darted out, quick, soft, dabbing at her palm. The thick taste of metal filled her mouth, sticking to the roof of her mouth, and she'd crinkled her nose, hand lowering. She'd stared for a moment, eyebrows thick and heavy over her coffee eyes, a slight rosiness to her lips. Cat's hands had raised impulsively, flattening themselves on her head, sticky against her scalp. She'd swiped them down, painting the brown hair a slick black, a glinting red, fingers skating her cheeks on their downward sweep. Her lips had curved in a smile, face turning from side to side, spears of bloodied hair sticking to her cheeks. Red looked good on her.

The water washed down pink when she showered.

Cat's palm turned up, fingers tickling the purring cat under the chin. She hadn't had a pet since Oscar. Too much trouble, her mother said. Maybe if she asked her mother she could keep this one. He was friendly. But he was so skinny. He wasn't enough of something for her mother. Her hand ran the length of his spine, thin and brittle under the loose skin. The cat swayed from the movement, purring pausing as it regained it's feet. He was so fragile. Cat smiled, repeating the motion, harder this time. The cat let out a soft squeak as if to warn her, the beginnings of a meow. She'd bet she could just snap him, like a dry twig. Her hand could practically encircle his ribcage. Cat wondered for a moment what would happen if she squeezed then, if she drew her fingers in sharply. Would he crumple like paper? Would he snap like a wishbone at Thanksgiving?

Cat looked around, eyebrows arrowing over her eyes. She stood, tongue dipping out over her lips. What would his soul look like, she wondered. Would it be like Oscar's, faint and shuttering? The cat weaved between her legs, stumbling with the fervour it put into rubbing against her. Cat frowned. It was getting her jeans all furry. If there was one thing Cat had learned from her mother, it was that there were people who Mattered, and people who didn't. They weren't part of The Big Picture. Cat was pretty sure this cat wasn't someone who Mattered. He hadn't even Mattered enough to his owners. They'd let him go.

Cat raised a sneakered foot, balance shaky. She hovered it over the cat, another fervent glance swept around her. The cat narrowed it's eyes up at her, sun glaring into it's yellow eyes, purr rumbling like a distant engine. It let out a keening scream when her foot stamped down on it's spine, hard. It's body writhed and twisted, scrabbling under her foot, claws hooking in the denim of her jeans, sinking deep into her calf. The white pearls of Cat's teeth sunk into her lip, a rush of pain swelling from her. She levered her weight further onto the cat, foot slipping suddenly, the cat giving a breathless yowl. Cat stomped down again, quickly, tears welling in her eyes, blurring the tabby and white form coughing beneath her. Ribs snapped like crackling leaves, torso growing pulpy with Cat's repeated stomps, sneaker growing bloody, the cat feebly struggling until her heel slid on it's thin neck, twisting the ropey muscle until a dull crunch sounded.

Cat stumbled back, tears dribbling down her flushed cheeks, taking a sobbing breath, the cat twisted and still in front of her. She swiped at her hot eyes, falling onto her knees, a wave of nausea swelling in her. She pushed it down, crawling forward on skinned hands and scraped knees, head peering at the cat's frozen face, spittle still gleaming in the corners of it's mouth, fixed in a tortured grin, fangs white, gums speckled black and pink. It's eyes stared blankly, pale yellow, like butter, the shine quickly fading from them. Cat watched that light get sucked up like a strand of spaghetti, whisked away by creeping death, closing like a curtain over the still cat, spurs of rib piercing through the dirty fur. They'd broken just as easily as she thought they would.

Cat's stomach heaved, memory of her lunch rising in her throat, and she pulled herself over to the grass and let it spill out, coughing at the sheer force of it, her entire body in revolt. She retched and retched until she was dry and shivering, and all that came up were thin dribbles of bitter bile, spat onto the grass. She took deep, shuddering breaths, scrabbling back onto her bottom, unaware of the chill of the cement, wet sobs shaking her body. She drained the poison of what she had done from her body, purged it on the grass, shed it from her eyes, until she was hollow and quivering, scraped raw and clean inside.

But that still left the matter of what to do with the cat. She'd seen it's soul; it was gone. It was just a body now, a broken, splintered body. It's blood spattered her feet; the cement.

Cat pulled herself to her feet again, wincing at the hot, throbbing pain that erupted in her calf, holes torn in the denim, soaked dark with her blood. She lifted the limp, pulpy form, all rumblings of life faded, it's engine silenced, lights dimmed. There was a crawlspace under her house. She'd discovered it one day, following a meandering trail of ants, trundling over the cement, weaving through the grass. A small dip between the ground and the first support that kept her house striding towards the sky, straddling this sloping hill. It was just big enough for her to wriggle into, earth damp and wet underneath her. She'd expected a treasure trove the first time she'd entered, some secret control room, some underground world. But all she found were the bones of her house. The wooden ribs that curled around the space. The roots that kept it sunk in the ground.

She took the cat there, took the soft, crackling body, tucked it under her arm as she tugged and heaved herself under the house, mud mixing with the blood that stained her, the tears on her cheek. She dug a small hole there, top of her head brushing a wooden beam, knees muddied from the damp earth. It didn't take very long to cover him. He was small. She petted the small mound afterwards, fresh tears on her cheek, a whispered apology issuing from her lips. "_I'm sorry, Mr. Kitty."_

She crept inside afterwards, dirty prints tracked behind her, clothes smeared with mud, fingernails packed full of dirt, filthy and rimmed black. She showered, washing the last traces of poison, of guilt from her system. The cat was No One. He was a stray; he didn't have some little girl waiting for him, some old lady crying over him. He was nothing. She'd set him free. He would've starved otherwise. He was sick. She just didn't do it right. She ran a hand over her punctured calf, bent, long slashes and deep wounds gouged in a few places, aching deep into the muscle. She hurt him too much. But she'd seen him at the end. He'd been peaceful. His soul had got sucked away, like when you switch a light off, but it still glows a little before fading. He'd been purring before he went away. He'd been happy.

She threw her stained clothes out. Dumped them in the family's trash can. Her house was big enough so that her whole family could be home, and she'd never see them. She barely had to sneak. Her sneakers she washed off in the sink, the blood indistinguishable from the mud. She set these outside to dry, perched together on the edge of the cement, toes inclined towards each other. There wasn't much blood on the cement. A few dribs and drabs, dried browny black. Maybe some of it was Cat's blood. She touched a fingertip to it, tracing the hardened disc of the droplet. Like glass, almost. It was such a pretty colour when it was fresh.

That was the first time Cat every really killed something, on purpose. But it wasn't the last. A childhood spent alone is fertile ground for creation. Or destruction.

/

**A/N: So. This was hard to write. I guess I hope it was hard to read.**

**Let me assure everyone that I have three healthy cats that were all strays, and that I am firmly against animal cruelty. If this story makes you happy/feel good, then... there's something wrong with _you_, not me. Or you've got a unique sense of humour.**

**Either way, writing this made me feel awful. Which is probably a good thing.**

**Review if it made you feel anything. Or even just to call me a soulless monster.**

**Also, if you don't like seeing Cat like this, then... you probably shouldn't read it, yeah?**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Victorious is not owned by me, and really it's for the best. It'd change genre every episode.**

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To say that Cat took to killing like a duck to water would be... misleading at best. True, she had a certain aptitude for it. Some innate instinct that taught her where to press, where to cut, where to shear. Part of it she learned from her daddy. His bedtime stories consisted of surgeries gone wrong, the many fragilities of the human body. He'd trace her tiny bones, her small muscles, cold, delicate doctor's fingers slicing her into her various cuts of meat, into the parts of her sum. But knowledge is nothing if it can't be put to use. The scrabbling animal instinct for survival that arose in Cat when her victims resisted, when their own will to live challenged hers, proved itself unnaturally resilient. Things ended quickly then. Clumsily, but effectively. A snapped neck, a severed artery. Cat's hands knew the strings of the human body well, with a natural talent. But those who can play do not always do so.

So certainly, to say Cat excelled at the science of killing would be accurate. But it was never death that she sought. It was simply a ripping away of masks, a stripping of lies. It was unfortunate to Cat that death seemed the inevitable result of seeking that. If there had been any other way to achieve her end, she would've done it. She wasn't in the business of achieving _other_ people's ends, it was just what had to be done. Deep down she knew it was 'wrong'. That it was bad to cut people's lives short. She knew it just like she knew stealing was wrong. But her mind worked like a join-the-dots that wasn't numbered. She could connect some of them, maybe get the beginning of a picture, but there were still some lonely bullets that sat far apart. She knew what was wrong, and what was right... just like she knew the sky was blue, and grass was green. They held no connotations of meaning for her. Just facts. As Cat grew older, as she read books and saw movies, and got new friends, she became aware that she ran parallel to them. That if they wore glasses, she was perched behind a kaleidoscope in her view of the world. She was detached, in a way, like everyone else was. She wore her own mask, and said _oh so sad, terrible, so mean, awful_. But they were just words, and if you said it just right, they rang true. Sometimes she'd stare at herself in the mirror, as deep into her own eyes as she could, through the pangs of coffee, the pool of chocolate. She'd try to see what she saw in all the others. That flicker flash that swept over her like a wave, that warmed her to her core. But all she saw was herself. She wondered sometimes if she did it, if she ended herself like she did the others; would she see that shutter before it faded, before she let go? Cat had a curiosity about it, like she did so many things. Most of the time that curiosity faded. She'd find out one day anyway, and she was patient when she needed to be.

From that first purposeful kill, she progressed. Slowly at first, tentatively. The cat had clawed deep, scored her calf in it's scrabbling panic. Twisted it's spine to breaking in a useless attempt to free itself. She'd sat in the shower, crying softly, fingers tracing the ragged cuts in the muscle, blood beading on her fingertips before washing away. Eventually it'd stopped, washed clean by the water, a deep throbbing hot beneath her fingers. Luckily they'd healed without incident, black scabbed lines that faded to tender pink, but sometimes she'd still run her fingers over them, over the ridged, numb marks. It was a lesson to learn. She did things the wrong way. She realised that, as she replayed the memory in her head that night. It should've been a beautiful thing, but it'd been dirty and messy and ugly. That glimmer, that sucking soul-bearing she'd seen had been masked with panic, with pain, like glare on a window. Maybe this would be enough; this one time.

But it wasn't.

Her mistake niggled at her. If she could just get it right, do it properly. If she could just see the glimpses she saw, the souls she bared, without a stain upon them, maybe she'd be satisfied.

She'd waited until the clawmarks had healed. Used them as a reminder when she felt that urge rise again. But eventually she couldn't fight it, not when her neighbour had a little yapping dog outside all the time. But it was too big, she'd mess up again. She couldn't take bite marks on her. Daddy said her body was an important asset. The more marked up she got it, the less she'd be worth. No one likes ugly girls.

That urge grew in her, gestating like some growing child, pushing and prodding at her insides. She'd touched over the memories of the souls she'd seen so often that the edges grew tattered and faded, smeared with fingerprints, and she'd started to mess details up. What colour had Frankie's inflatable pool been? How had the air smelled that day? She'd started chewing at her lip, sweeping her hair forward nervously, so that it splayed over her shoulders and recreated that slight breeze she felt that day. Anything to dull that urge, that _have to have to have to see _that whispered inside her. _Just one more time_.

But isn't that how every addiction starts out?

Her class' hamster had been her next victim. Luck seemed to play into her hands. It was her turn to take him home for the day. He never came back. Cat had taken it slow, thought her way through, foot hooked behind her scarred leg, rubbing over the freshly healed ridges. It'd been barely a frame in the film of the hamster's eyes. A tortured squeak, a little extra shine, and it was over. But Cat had done it right. Her school barely noticed; they lost a lot of hamsters, what was one more mystery?

To Cat, it taught an important lesson. Some lives don't matter. People don't care when these tiny flames are snuffed out, and even the bigger flames only affect those who they once warmed. A death is a ripple, but ripples die too.

The dog next door went missing.

Posters were put up, names were called up and down the street. And the ripple died.

On those occasions when Cat fed her urge, sated her curiosity, she felt an odd kind of satisfaction at the end. When she curled up in her pastel-quilted bed, eyelids heavy with sleep, skin soft and clean and smelling of soap. The same feeling an artist experiences on the last stroke of their masterpiece, the same feeling a farmer gets when he wipes the sweat from his brow and surveys his land. A feeling of contentment, of pride. Cat understood now why people wanted to be something, why they wanted to be extraordinary. Because that feeling was as close to flying as people could come, even if some of them ended up falling. She slept heavily those nights, a leaden, dreamless sleep that she woke from softly, hands curled in front of her, knees drawn up.

Of course, those nights were few and far between. Cat was an opportunist, in that she could see a moment worth taking. They were everywhere, you just had to look underneath. Lift things, shift things, and an opportunity would appear. People were so vulnerable, and completely oblivious to the fact. Soft skin, brittle bones, a maze of throbbing veins fanning over muscle. Masked by the false armour of clothing. Those vulnerabilities shone to Cat; a turned neck, exposing the throbbing jugular, a crossed leg, femoral artery running along the inner thigh. She'd studied her daddy's medical books like they were bedtime stories, and the moral was mortality. But Cat didn't always feel like snatching at those gleaming opportunities, didn't always have the burning in her stomach that drove her, the itching in her veins. Her addiction was still fledgling, her mind and body still weak.

Her life did not revolve around deaths, though. They were simply something that happened, something she did. A hobby like any other, but one you keep secret, one you have to hide your smiles about. Everyone had those. Cat knew that. When she sat down to dinner at night, her family's conversation was filled with things unsaid. No one talked about Daddy's mistakes, the slight tremor that clattered his fork against his plate sometimes. No one spoke of her mother's full glass of wine, soon emptied and refilled. Her brother had yet to hide his shame, boasting of schoolyard fights won, noses bloodied. He'd hide them later; the scraped knuckles, the puffed lip. He'd learn like Cat had learned. There were things you just don't say. A mask was the first thing you put on after you were born. And Cat's secret was hardly the only one she kept. It was little to her, dust under the rug. It slumbered in her, rousing only to feed. The rest of her life was far from ordinary, at least to most people. Ballet lessons, singing lessons, auditions, piano lessons (though that last one never took). Her life was scheduled, and it wasn't for her to say it should be different. It was all she knew; living life on a timetable. It made life both simpler and more complicated. She didn't have to think, didn't have to fill her spare time with friends or silly games. Her future was all mapped out, and it was comforting. She saved her childhood for her sleep, in the moments before unconsciousness. Little fantasies, where she was the hero, where she stripped away other people's masks while hiding behind her own magenta masquerade, and they thanked her with shining eyes and skeletal faces. _Supercat_. But she could never fly in her dreams.

Cat's birthday was an afternoon of changes. Her mother had taken her to a school called Hollywood Arts, and Cat had watched with wide eyes and writhing hands as her mother had led her through graffitied halls, chatting to a kind-eyed man with tight black curls on his head. They appraised her like a freshly slaughtered carcass, tracing her parts of value, weighing her merit. And Cat's mother had raised her to break the scales. Cat's attention had drifted in and out, more focussed on the decorated lockers, and chattering children, swathed in colours. Works of art in themselves. Her mother and the man had concluded the deal with a handshake, a successful barter. Cat had been sold for all she was worth, and it was a good day. Her mother got to live a life she couldn't achieve, and tried to forget with alcohol and pills. _For your future, _she always said. But she spoke as if the future was a fixed thing, an immovable star in the sky. But even stars can fall, though Cat was yet to see a shooting star and realise this.

They'd gone shopping afterwards, her mother full of smiles that didn't touch her eyes, and cold hands that bruised Cat's slight shoulders. The future filled her mouth like gleaming teeth. But Cat had little interest in frozen diamonds, clasped in a cage of gold, nor rings that choked her fingers, and while her mother draped a row of softly shining pearls over her throat, where the jugular beat so strongly, so persistently, Cat had wandered away, trailed her fingers over the cool glass of the store windows. A candle store, scent musky, tinged with cinnamon. A toy store, broken with the laughter of children, the robotic sounds of activated toys, the low murmur of patient parents. She lingered in front of a pharmacy, small heels of her shoes tapping on the cream tiles that lined the mall floor. There was a game she'd play, sometimes with her daddy. They'd chant the names of medications, the effects, like they were incantations, spells to be cast. He'd buy her an icecream after, a smile directed at her while his eyes sized up the people around them. It became a habit to duck into every pharmacy she saw, to memorise as many as she could. She'd smiled a little as she'd headed inside, a soft chime sounding her entrance. She'd impress him this time!

But it wasn't medicine she found, not ointment or bandage. A flash of red as she scanned the shelves, incongruous. A box on it's side, chosen then abandoned, left where it didn't belong. Hair dye. _Scarlet Fever_, it promised, a laughing model on the front, hand caressing her bloody hair as it cascaded over her shoulders. Cat had taken it with wide eyes, stroking the coloured locks that adorned the box. She'd left it with a promise, her mother's hard voice staining the air, unmuffled by walls. She'd strayed too far off her leash. Her mother didn't like her show pony to roam too far.

It was an afternoon of changes, not only in situations, but in mind. An afternoon of promises. Cat had grown a little, had some snap in her brain, like a brittle twig, and a fire had started. It was up to time to let it grow, to let it spread. The spark had been set, and Cat's star trembled a little in its velvet firmament, shifted a little off its set course.

/

**A/N: Here's the part where I say things that are incongruous to the story, and genuinely whore myself for reviews.**

**But I swear, I'm not going to do that this time. Why, you ask? Have I suddenly developed some moral fibre? No, I have not, but I have been eating more wheat. Have I gained a sense of propriety, and respect? No, I have not. That disabled man didn't need those pants. I didn't either, but they looked better on me anyway. Have I developed a sense of self worth? No, I ate a week old taco that fell behind my fridge. I did develop food poisoning though.**

**No, none of that. I just have a headache. And a sore tailbone. I should probably stand up. I've been sitting for... wait. Wait. It was light outside before, I swear. HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN SITTING HERE.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Victorious is not owned by me, because the man screwed me. With a philipshead, no less.**

**Edit: Mistakes are now corrected. I apologise for the slip up**

/

She didn't start at Hollywood Arts right away. She had the talent, but her father made sure to grease some palms with his plastic money. Her father was not a man of faith; talent was subjective, money was not. Money was a fact you could hold in your hand, and Cat was still an unproven child, yet to pay off the value invested in her.

The day before she was due to start, her mother took her shopping, sharp fingernails pressed between Cat's shoulderblades as she pushed her along the bustling floors of the mall. A lazy Sunday spent worshipping capitalism. Cat's daddy didn't believe in religion; another intangible thing. She had hazy memories of her mother whispering fantastical stories of seas parting, of bushes burning and speaking, eyes fervent as she tucked Cat in, a dainty silver cross spattered with rubies dangling between her mother's breasts, that was always so cold when Cat reached out for it. But soon her father started standing in the doorway, arms crossed, and her mother's voice grew quieter, and eventually faded out altogether. It wasn't long after that her cross disappeared, replaced by a string of gleaming pearls. Replacing her smile.

_Anything you want_. By this time, Cat had already learned that her mother's statements came with fine print, with subtitles and subsections, shades of meaning colouring underneath them. Anything her mother wanted for Cat, was a more accurate translation. Childlike things, cupcakes and kittens and bright, bright colours. _It makes you look younger_. Cat wondered how young she was supposed to look, sometimes. She didn't have any wrinkles, she didn't have an ounce of cellulite on her. She was slim and short and winsome. She didn't understand, but she played the role her mother wanted regardless. A floating voice and big eyes kept her placated, and soon it became second nature for Cat to remain fixed in place, never changing. Just revolving. A child in a body that wouldn't obey.

Cat had broken away on the way out, her mother's ruby nails tightening in alarm before she slipped away, crinkling bag slapping her calves as she jogged to the pharmacy, where she'd promised herself just weeks before. It was still there. _Scarlet Fever_. She'd run an index finger over the box, slight ridges of writing bumping over her fingertips. It was the perfect start.

She'd begged and pleaded while her mother drummed her matching fake nails on her scaled purse, lips drawn tight. Her mother was never a fighter though, she'd bend and bend under a strong wind, until one day she broke. But today was not this day, and Cat was barely a breeze to her sapling. Cat had cradled the box of hair dye like a precious object, held tight to her blossoming chest, a grin on her lips. Her mother had looked down at her, blank expression on her face. _Don't smile, it shows your dimples_. Imperfections.

She'd applied it that night, staining her hands red before her mother took over, gloves like Cat's daddy's pulled onto her thin hands. The diamond of her wedding ring had cut a hole in the glove, they later found out, when the glimmering crystal became a ruby for a brief time.

When it came time to wash the dye out, Cat had been bent over the bathtub, shower head spraying the water forward. The water was too hot, but Cat didn't tell her mother. It didn't matter, she'd just make it too cold. It was never right. Cat had watched fascinated as the water ran red, swirling down the drain, endless. Thick, tomato red, washing to pink, washing to a tinge, to nothing, and it was blood that dripped down Cat's shoulders when she stood. Wet, shining, ruby red that stuck to her cheek, dislodged only by her smile as she gazed in the mirror. She'd been unaware of the snapping gloves as her hand stroked the wet hair, newly stained. _Mommy, it's perfect._

After that, Cat fell into the rhythm of the school easily. A new girl for an new school. Just another unique talent, like all the others. She didn't stand out, and she didn't fit in. It was all she hoped to achieve. Words wounded her just like they did anyone else, but with a pool so shallow they made a big splash, even if her waters calmed just as quickly, and people learned to watch the stones of words they skipped across her. Which ones were too big, too heavy; the ones that would sink right to her core. Cat quickly grew to like it there. The place was a cartoon to her family's still-life, and Cat having never grown out of liking cartoons.

The school was so big, yet so tiny. Cat would arrive there early sometimes, her mother a mask behind her sunglasses. Cat was never sure if she was happy or not. Her mask was so tightly fitted, nothing got through. Cat never had a chance to guess who was under there. She could run her nails all over her mother's mask, and never find a chink to pry open. All she could do was remember the cracks that used to be in it. The laughter lines, the wrinkles that once lined her brow. The memories, before they were stretched out and ironed away.

Regardless, Cat always wished her a cheery goodbye, her voice floating while her mother's flatlined. The school was usually unlocked, a few kids pooled in the darker indentations of shadow, voices soft and stilted. Her feet echoed in the halls then, a ripple in the pond, a dripping tap. It all seemed so huge. Classroom after classroom, hall after hall. It was only when all the kids trickled in, jostled in the halls, that the place seemed to shrink, as if to embrace those within. And Cat learned that no matter how small a place is, it's never cosy if you're there alone. It's always bigger on the inside, when you're the only one standing there.

But Cat was lucky. Despite her oddities, or perhaps because of them, she fell into a group of friends. Almost effortlessly. She hadn't sought them out, she hadn't desperately wanted friends. She was content on her own, but stars don't twinkle if there's not someone to see them. She lit up around people; it was the performer in her. She was more effusive, more animated, more everything and yet somehow less. She was a shallow pool, drained so you could see all the gold that glittered in her. After all, no one ever sifted the ocean for gold, and oceans can hold deep, dark, terrible things that no one should ever dredge up.

It'd started with Robbie, really. She'd smiled at him the same way she smiled at everyone as she passed him on the way into school, and he'd blushed and ducked his head, dark curls spilling over the frame of his glasses. It was only when his puppet, Rex, spat out a crude comment about her legs that Cat had looked back. Robbie had mumbled out an apology, hand pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. His apology hadn't been for him, but for the puppet. And Cat had realised that Robbie's mask was Rex, split apart from him. It had fascinated her; she hadn't known you could get that mask off without... without death. They were so disparate; Rex, crude and offensive, and Robbie, awkward and shy. But they were incontrovertibly linked, not just physically, but mentally as well. Cat had wondered if anyone ever took away Rex, would Robbie become him? Or had Robbie just cast these negative qualities completely into this dummy, and once Rex was gone, they would be too? Is a mask still a mask without its wearer? Or is it just a prop, purposeless? Cat couldn't figure it out, couldn't see where the mask had once fitted onto Robbie's face, and the more she talked to him, the less she understood. But with Robbie came others. Andre, Beck, and Jade.

They weren't her first friends, and she was dimly aware that in all probability, they wouldn't be her last. But in this blossoming of hormones, and firing of neurons, she found herself more in touch, more interested in them than she ever had been in her 'friends' in elementary school. They were all so different, yet they were all friends, and part of her couldn't understand that, couldn't find the pieces of their jigsaws that fit together. They were jagged and uneven, but somehow they just worked. There was something that kept them bonded together, not just out of convenience, but out of mutual affection, however hidden and muted it might've been. Cat liked to think it was their true selves, their real souls that made that connection, that communicated beneath their vastly different masks, in a language she couldn't understand. And while the others spoke in logic and reason, Cat was well versed in nonsense. Nothing really made sense to her; nothing's ever perfectly symmetrical, there's always a different way to look at it. Perhaps it came from her revolving in place. Always the same but forever changing, despite herself. She didn't need to provide reasons to herself as to why she thought they were all bonded, it was enough to her that she felt that way. Her emotions were her proof, flitting and transient as they often were.

She kept herself a glimmering wading pool, cheery and enthusiastic, showing joy and sorrow over the tiniest of events, the smallest of actions. But deep within her ocean, amid the sunken ships littered with bleached skeletons, she was perhaps more mature than them all. After all, who else among them could say they'd taken a life? Cat herself wasn't even entirely sure what was buried within her, waiting to be shifted and send bubbles streaming towards the surface. What deep sea monsters blinked blind eyes, their teeth needles, bodies warped and deformed. She was as yet unexplored. Unfathomable.

Cat found herself gravitating towards Jade. Her waters were black and stormy, and when Cat was with her, she felt a little like drowning. A little like she was always struggling, feet treading water. Never getting anywhere, but trapped in the current. Jade was strong, she was mean. Words skated off her, melted like butter under the intense heat of her glare. She was night to Cat's day, but you can't have one without the other. Robbie might've had the fascination of his split, but his black and white never mixed. Jade was brooding grey, full of swirls and eddies and a million things Cat couldn't pick out of the maelstrom. Most of all, she was blank. She held it all inside. Her storm raged underneath, occasionally rippling the surface. Jade was like Cat's mother, but not so smooth, not so perfectly sculpted. She cracked and fractured all the time, and Cat couldn't help but look inside. She had a natural interest in people. And what those people might really be, underneath it all. What her mother might really have been, before her colour drained away.

Amidst all this change, all this making of friends, of doing homework and running lines and caking on makeup, there was one persistent clang in Cat's life. One sound that wasn't quite right, that wasn't tuned like it should be. Here were all these people around her who wore masks for a living. She watched them put them on, hell, she put them on herself. She sang and danced and she wasn't her. She was whoever she was needed to be, until it was time to be herself again, until it got to where she wasn't sure whether she was really herself, or just playing the role of who she should be. Everyone was so fake, and so very skilled at it. Why, some of them could've been real and she wouldn't have even known it. They were all made to look so lifelike, but how many of them were just wires and electrodes inside? That itch crawled along her spine, slow at first. Burning between her shoulderblades. _Remember? Remember how they all looked? Remember Frankie?_ The problem was, she didn't remember Frankie. Time had muddied the memory, scratched the disc and made it all but unplayable. The itch crept down another vertebrae, licking a flame down her spine. She'd watch Jade on their sleepovers, see the porcelain skin of her throat pulse while she slept, lips slack, brows furrowed even in sleep.

You don't do that to friends though. Friends are for keeping, and Cat wasn't wasteful. She knew her friends were good people. She didn't know that about everyone else though. They were all two-dimensional until she decided to flesh them out. Flesh was hard to come by, and it took time to sew it all on. You couldn't do it to everyone. There were too many people, and they were all the same on the outside. She took to twisting her back, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. The itch was incessant, almost nauseating at times. _Remember? Remember!_

Cat needed to remember, just once more. She needed to carve through the layers of onion that littered her school. Actors within actors within singers within dancers. A role within a role within a role. She needed to peel lie after lie away, until the very core was exposed, small and fragrant. What she failed to realise is that no matter how many layers you peel away, an onion is still an onion, and there's no great difference between the outer layer and the most inner layer. She was searching for diamonds where they didn't belong. Chasing butterflies in the dark.

But she couldn't help it. It was who she was. If there was one thing that school beat into you, it was to always be yourself, even as they handed you a script and a costume and told you who you were.

Now all she had to do was catch the butterfly that was ready to die. The one whose wings beat just a fraction too late, with powder streaked away from it's fragile body. The one who gradually came to rest on a twig, wings folding slowly. All she had to do was keep her eyes open. Opportunities were everywhere.

/

**A/N: And so ends yet another chapter of this dark swirly thinkyfic.**

**I know a lot of you have said to me, "Oh Miss Writer, how are you not in jail by now? By which I mean you're criminally talented, because I _know _ you were acquitted of those breaking-and-entering charges, and rightly so. Because that was your house, they just didn't know it."**

**To which I try to respond amicably. "BECAUSE YOU'RE A WHORE, JENNIFER. BECAUSE YOU HAVE SEX FOR MONEY."**

**People don't ask me a lot of things.**

**A review is greatly appreciated :D**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Victorious is not owned by me, because there's a very specific law preventing that.**

/

The icecream was cold and sweet, frozen flavour of bubblegum coating her tongue, almost sickly.

Cat giggled as a dab of melting ice cream dotted her nose, trying to reach it with her tongue before swiping it away with a hand. Her fingers which held the icecream were already sticky and cold, dribbles of the melted treat crawling down the cone. She ate hers messily, the sun searing her skin a contrast to the frozen inside of her mouth. Jade was much daintier; but then, she'd gotten her icecream in a cup, not a cone. She picked at her mint choc chip scoop with disdain, any enjoyment she might have taken from it rendered moot from Cat's sloppy devouring of hers.

"You're disgusting, you know that?" Jade's tone was light, not the one she used to cut and slice, but rather one to prick, to tease with. If she truly felt disgust, it was tempered with amusement. Her tone was unimportant to Cat, however, since the words were her mother's, repeated every night at dinner, in a restrained and revolted voice, sculpted by class and not by kindness, and out of the corner of her eye, for just a moment, it wasn't Jade seated beside her on the prickly, paint-flaked bench, but the arrow straight form of her mother. Her hand tightened on the cone, a sharp crunch sounding, followed by a stream of cool liquid, running down her palm. She dropped the demolished icecream, eyebrows turning up. A quick glance, and suddenly it was Jade beside her again, an irritated sigh exiting her mouth. The dark-haired girl took a napkin, handing it to Cat, her hands turning the delicate patterned tissue to soggy mush almost instantly. "Come on, I'll take you to the bathroom."

Cat followed the taller girl, converse crunching on the pine chips of the playground, the sound of children laughing and screaming punctuating the hot air. It was the kind of day Jade hated, something which Cat knew because she'd been told so repeatedly. Yet simply because it was something the sullen girl hated, it became something Cat loved. She took pleasure in bending her friends, in seeing how far they'd twist for her before their dislike outweighed their affection for her. It wasn't that she enjoyed making them suffer, rather, she enjoyed knowing they suffered for her. That Jade's constant grimaces and sharp tone were caused by her, yet never directed against her. It went against all Jade's bitterness, all her disregard for people in general. Cat knew she'd come out here for one reason, and one reason only; her. It was just another way for Cat to toy with the edges of those masks, to feel where they didn't quite join the skin. Jade's pretense of not caring was proven just that by her presence, and perhaps that was why Cat toyed with her more often than anyone else. Jade's actions were so much more incongruous to her words than any of Cat's other friends. They were polar opposites, and Cat took joy in seeing just how far apart those poles were.

Jade's hands were gentle with the paper towel, dabbing at Cat's mouth, eyebrows furrowed. "Seriously, didn't your mother ever teach you to eat properly?" The harshness of her words wasn't matched by her expression, by the gentleness of her hands; in fact, her insults towards Cat never were. Maybe that's why they never stung her, because they were never meant to, and perhaps that's why the accidental slights that slipped from the mouths of others hurt her so much more; because they were meant, they were truths that didn't intend to hurt, but simply did because they were true. Cat was never satisfied with the surface of something. She had a need to dig into it, to pull it to pieces and see if it was the same all the way through. Her love of dissection made her excel in her acting classes. She was able to get to the core of a character, to speak with their voice, to feel what they felt, to absorb them until entirely until she forgot who she was. She felt more real as a fictitious character than she did as herself. Everything about them was exaggerated for the audience, and perhaps that's why she exaggerated herself, made every feeling and thought magnified. It felt so fake to do things quietly.

Cat dried her hands on another sheet of paper towel, fingers still slightly sticky in their creases and folds. Jade swore as she checked her phone, the two exiting the cold and sickly-smelling bathroom. "Shit. I was supposed to meet Beck twenty minutes ago."

Cat tilted her head, squinting past the bright sun that haloed around Jade's face. "You like him, don't you?" By now, Cat had pushed and prodded enough of Jade's buttons to know which ones worked, and which were just coloured plastic. Beck was a bright and shiny one, planted right in the middle.

Jade shrugged, the move too jerky to be natural. "He's okay. He's better than the rest of the jerks at school." Her tone was light, dismissive, but Cat knew by now not to go by Jade's voice. It lied more than anything else, even when the words it spoke were true. "I've gotta go. I'll see you at school or something."

"'Kay 'kay." Cat's eyes narrowed slightly. "Jade-" The dark haired girl turned, groaning as Cat's arms circled around her in a hug. Her hugs were always met like this, with a grunt or a complaint from Jade's voice, from Jade's brain. The things she used to hide with. Jade's body was more truthful than Jade would ever want to be; a little hitch in her breath, a twitch of her hands against Cat's back, and Cat knew that although Jade had made up her mind to hate Cat's touches, her body still enjoyed them. "Bye." Cat let the stiff girl go, a smile on her bubblegum-flavoured lips.

"Bye." Jade licked her lips, whirling away, heavy boots beating a tattoo on the pavement as she hurried down the street.

Cat waved at the receding girl, smile still curved on her lips. Jade was fascinating to her, a jumble of mixed feelings that knotted themselves into a tight ball that Jade either didn't want to - or couldn't - pick apart. For someone who held herself in such tight control, Jade was the most chaotic person Cat had ever met. It was amusing to Cat to pull some of those knotted strings and see what came tumbling out. Sometimes she thought she knew more about who Jade really was than Jade herself did, but then, half of Jade's personality came from denying the parts she couldn't accept. The parts that made her hands twitch and her breath hitch.

The itch crawled in her lower back as she walked back to the faded bench, wood prickling her palms as she sat down. Sometimes she forgot about it, that crawling, humming sound that hid in the back of her head, that tickled at her spine. As much fun as she had tracing those outlines, picking out the lies people covered themselves with, part of her longed to just rip their mask off, reveal their bare bone and grinning teeth. Jade, her favourite toy, was somewhat ironically the very thing that stopped her from doing so. Even if Cat were to take her time, and do everything right, and capture that very last instant of Jade's life, all she'd see would be confusion. Jade wasn't even sure who she was, and Cat was slowly realising that most teenagers weren't sure. In their last moment would only lie pain, uncertainty. Maybe some knew; there were always people who never wavered in what they were, but most muddled their way through everything, acting more from hormones and societal pressure than from any real backbone.

As much as Cat wanted to experience that bliss again, that utter awe and complete truth, it wasn't as easy as just picking a target and aiming for it. Animals were all the same, but people... they were vastly different. Frankie was the only person she'd ever killed, and that was more accident than intent.

Cat studied the ground for a moment, a trail of black ants already marching their way over to her crushed icecream, ringing it. She edged her foot over until just the edge dipped into the pooled icecream, ants swarming onto the edge of her shoe angrily. She turned her attention to the playground, a particularly raucous yell cutting through the sound of humming insects and laughter. Children swarmed over the hot bars of playground equipment, running and jumping with careless abandon. Parents watched on, some smiling, some worried, some turned away, phone pressed to their ear. Friendships were forged on flimsy whims, and dissolved just as frivolously, tears coming as easily as laughter.

Cat propped her chin on her hand, watching the chaos churn up pine chips in front of her. Perhaps a child would be easiest? Cat was aware of her own physical limitations by now, the invincibility of childhood dispelled around the first time her brother forced her to the ground, holding her arms down as a long line of drool dangled towards her. Cat's logic reasoned to her that a child would be least missed, as well. After all, they'd only been around a few years, compared to a teenager being around for __much__longer. Surely it wouldn't be as painful to the parents, the siblings, the friends, if it were someone who'd barely gotten a foothold into the world?

To all observers, Cat was simply a teenaged girl, smiling occasionally at the frolicking of the children in the playground, feet swinging back and forth as she perched on the bench. Cat was a master at keeping her surface clear and warm, while monsters writhed within her depths. The easiest mask of all was stupidity. It lowered people's expectations, put them at ease. People were apt to forget the damage stupidity could do, when loud enough. Cat's strength laid in weakness.

How would she do it? Where would she do it? All Cat's experiments had been out of urgency, out of opportunity. This would have to be a created opportunity, planned to the last detail. She couldn't afford to be clumsy, to prick where she should stab, to twist where she should snap. The whole thing seemed incredibly complex to her. She stomped her foot on the pavement, twisting the toe, a score of ants ground to oblivion. Animals just couldn't cut it anymore. The dying flicker in a cat's eyes only whet her appetite, a whispered promise of __more__. If cats and dogs were fading torchlights, than surely a child would have to be a spotlight, something impossible to miss. Something that would satisfy this crawling urge in her. A butterfly that she could catch and pin down, marvel at its brilliant colours, instead of these drab moths that fell apart so easily.

She had to do it. She had to see.

Cat's mask of stupidity wasn't entirely feigned, which is part of why it worked so very well. There were some things Cat was truly stupid about, things that she couldn't make sense of, no matter which way she twisted them. People, however, were a subject she was incredibly intelligent about. She had an animal cunning, an instinct that told her the weak spots in a person's anatomy, in their behaviour. She'd spent so much time pretending to be other people she'd become an expert at it. It's easier to step into someone's shoes if you've worn them before.

So whose shoes would be the best fit for leading a child away? Not Jade's. Not Beck's. Not Robbie's. Cat clicked her own shoes together, a few droplets of melted icecream spattering onto the pavement. Maybe her own shoes would be best after all. Her mother had kept her crushed into the clothing of a child, even while her body grew. She knew how to talk to children, to sing the nonsense they sounded out. Maybe all she had to do was shrink down a little more.

Cat grinned, pulling herself off the bench. Her feet flew over the pine chips, arms outspread as she swooped towards the playground, mouth making a sputtering machine gun noise. Children squealed and giggled as she approached, some joining her in her imaginary dogfight, insects ceasing their buzzing in indignant outrage. Parents looked on, amused, as Cat tilted and twirled with the children. And when she laughed, she sounded just like them.

/

**A/N: I'm a nice girl, so I promise no more animals will die. **

**Kids though. Kids will.**

**I will kill all your dreams.**

**Reviews are always appreciated, even if they're just the keyboard-smashing equivalent of ugly sobs.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Victorious is not mine, and this whole fic is proof as to why.**

**Warning: This chapter contains disturbing content. If you're affected by violence (especially that against children), don't read this.**

It took some time before the opportunity arose. It wasn't a perfect one, but the months had left Cat itching. Her palms had crawled and her spine had ached and she'd picked up the habit of staring at people, at teachers, at classmates, even her parents. She'd taken to staring through them, to trying to lift the curve of their retinas to get in behind them. That was where it was, where the light lived. A little spark from the brain that bled into the eyes, the last flicker of life. Maybe that was where the soul came out, where it twisted and squirmed free from the brain. It wasn't there normally; Cat's staring had proven that. She'd seen too many dead eyes and glassy looks to believe otherwise. She could barely remember what it looked like; that glaring, shining truth. It was like a light that was too bright, like staring into the sun until it sears an image on the inside of your eyelids. But that image always fades; Cat could barely see the outline anymore. It was a colour she could only vaguely describe, one that didn't exist until she saw it.

It had been far too long. Cat's need grew to outweigh her caution, her reticence. A child was an awfully big leap, and Cat had never been good at hopscotch. She never made it past the middle. She'd wobble and try to catch herself and end up crying with a skinned knee while everyone stared. She couldn't afford having anyone staring at her game this time. It was one to be done alone, in little hops and skips. No one looks if you do it perfectly. They only look if you fail. It was Cat's plan to play it safe, to measure each little step perfectly.

As it turned out, all her plans came to nothing.

She was a little girl lost, cheeks streaked with tears, lips wet and shining from sobs. Cat knew the look well. The girl had lost her mother, tiny fingers slipping from an absent grip. Maybe she'd seen something shiny, something that looked fun. Maybe she'd pried at it with curious fingers, a smile on her face. _L___ook Mommy, look!___ B_ut Mommy hadn't been there. She'd gotten a call, she'd marched on ahead, shopping list in hand, she'd simply kept walking, sure in her assumption that her daughter would follow. Cat'd gotten lost more than a few times. She knew the feeling of utter helplessness, of terror. The feeling that something vital was gone, something necessary just to stay alive. In this case, that feeling would turn out to be very right. Cat had shoved the summery dress she'd been holding back onto the rack, heart shaking in her chest. This was an opportunity. Not one she would've taken last week, not even one she would've taken yesterday, but it'd been so long, so long since she really saw someone. She was getting caught up in all the lies, all the masks and doublespeak and rhetoric. She itched to strip them bare, to rip the blindfold off her eyes and see, really see what someone was made out of. See that wriggling soul that was kept locked up so very tightly. And Cat had the feeling that the soul of a child had a much smaller lock on it.

She'd taken the little girl's hand, sweet words on her lips, and the girl had looked up at her with the innocent trust of one who has yet to learn betrayal. Cat knew where her mother was, she'd take her to her right away. __Just hold my hand__.

Cat had been to this particular store many times before. In fact, it'd been Jade who'd dragged her here the first time. Jade had left with a pair of heavy combat boots she hadn't paid for, and Cat had left with the location of every surveillance camera, pointed out surreptitiously by the brunette girl. There was a place around the back Jade had taken her after, holding a shivering cigarette up to her lips, thumb flicking the roller of a butane lighter. It was dark and cold and dirty, and Cat had lingered in the stale air, cigarette smoke burning her nose, and it had felt so very _J___ade__. Icy and jagged and rough. Burning with a need for attention, for warm crowds of people it was never designed for. It wasn't a place meant for people at all, and perhaps that was why Jade squirrelled it out, why she wandered past the reeking dumpsters and rusted chainlink fence that surrounded the area. It certainly was out of the way; hemmed in by the backs of stores, the only light entering in a tiny square from above. No bigger than a skylight, without the glass.

Jade had offered her the cigarette, and Cat had taken it, even though her Daddy's voice had chanted in her mind. _W___rinkles, liver spots, stained fingers, gum disease___. H_er Daddy had made a fortune off tobacco. He'd even taken it up himself, not too long ago. Kept his hands steady, he said. But his fingers had shaken the ash right off. Cat had inhaled a shallow breath, acrid smoke searing the back of her throat, stroking her tongue with ashy feathers. She'd handed it back, but it was enough. She'd sensed the relief in the brunette. Cat was the only one who knew about this place besides Jade. Cat was able to guess as much. It'd been an act of trust, of vulnerability to bring her into this little safehouse. Taking the cigarette had just been a silent confirmation of support. That she could be trusted with this special place, with this little secret of Jade's. Cat had felt rather touched. People seemed to trust her rather easily, to taste her sweetness and assume it went straight to the bone. It had meant more that this hard stone of a girl had let her in. She would've had to shatter herself to do it.

And now Cat was sharing this safehouse with another who trusted her.

"Where's my Mommy?"

Cat shushed the girl. _J___ust a little further__. She was five, maybe six, with blonde hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her green eyes were rimmed with red, pale pudgy flesh shiny from tears and snot. She was clad in a soft pink t-shirt, flowers emblazoned on the front, short sleeves of the shirt frilled. Her tights were yellow, almost the same hue as her hair. Her clothing wasn't dissimilar to what Cat's own mother had picked out for her as a child. She was so pale, a trait only magnified by the cool shadows that clung to this place. She was like a little china doll, and if it weren't for the warmth of her hand in Cat's, Cat wouldn't have thought she was real at all. Although Cat's interpretation of what was real and what was not was hardly definitive. Almost no one seemed real to her, hiding inside themselves as they did. She'd tired of the hide and seek she played with everything. She was going to find this girl, this little doll of a child, and bring her out into the light. What was inside this shivering, snivelling little girl? What was underneath the tears and the quivering lower lip? Cat's palms itched to find out.

The place still smelt of stale cigarettes, a few empty bottles shining in the shadows. Smoking wasn't Jade's only rebellious vice. The asphalt was cracked and split, like some great giant had thrust a hand into it and twisted it roughly, sending sprays of gravel and chunks of black asphalt scattered across the rippling ground. Cat thought maybe it was the pressure of the buildings, looming over this tiny space. Maybe they were crowding closer, shuffling a little further each year, until soon this place wouldn't exist at all. She liked the idea of that, for some reason; those slowly crushing walls.

As much as Cat longed to see that flash, that flicker behind the girl's teary eyes, she was always hesitant about the process to acquire it. It was so messy and painful and hot. It always made her heart knock its way out her chest, pound back and forth against her ribs and spine. It was the adrenaline, she was pretty sure. The fight or flight instinct scrambling into action. It wasn't right for that sort of thing to happen; she was neither fighting nor flighting. Maybe it'd go away with time, once her instinct understood what this was. It was simply an unveiling, that was all. Pulling a sheet off some fantastic work of art, the magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, and those things were always met with thunderous applause. Cat was sure that if people saw what she saw, they'd do the same as her. It's impossible to live with a lie when you know the truth. That peoples' skins were simply the sheet they covered their masterpieces up with.

The child's trust was wavering now, tiny feet shuffling together. Her hand slipped free from Cat's, pulled back to her side. "Where's my Mommy?" She asked again petulantly, fresh tears starting to brim. She edged back into the small square of sunlight that pierced the centre of the place, as if the light would bring her safety. As if it were safer than the darkness that surrounded it, just because it was warm and bright.

"She's not here." Cat clenched and unclenched her hands, like she was pulling on a ripcord, hoping it would sputter her into action. It only served to increase her nervousness, to tighten her muscles until they hurt.

"Where is she? I want- I want my M-mommy." The girl's lower lip started to quiver, stumbling over the childish words, small hands balling into fists.

"Don't cry. Don't be sad." Cat shook her head. This wasn't how it supposed to go. It was supposed to be easy. The little girl was supposed to be happy, to smile and laugh and then Cat would do it. She'd do it and it'd be so quick the girl would still have a smile on her face when that flickerflash appeared. She wasn't supposed to be sad, to be scared. "Stop it. Please stop?"

The girl's crying grew louder, raw sobs heaving from her narrow chest.

"You've gotta stop it. Stop!" It was making Cat's spine prickle. Why was the girl even crying? All Cat had done was take her to a neat place. She hadn't even touched her yet, and when she did it'd be so quick she wouldn't even feel a thing anyway. A spike pricked the back of Cat's tongue, eyes growing hot. "Please? Just stop crying." She clenched her fists tighter. It wasn't meant to be this way! It was supposed to be like the hamster, or the canary she'd bought from the petstore that time. It was supposed to be simple. She wasn't supposed to be crying.

Cat jerked herself into action, hot tears blurring her vision. She lunged forward, hands outstretched. She couldn't stand people crying. Her fingers caught in the little girl's blonde pigtails, tearing them loose. The girl let out a high-pitched scream, turning into a low whine as Cat's hands tightened around the girl's fragile throat. "You weren't supposed to cry!" Cat scolded, squeezing tighter with shaking hands. The girl's chubby fingers scrabbled at Cat's hands, a keening grunt escaping the suffocating girl. It wouldn't be long now, it wouldn't. Cat knew it didn't take long. If she could just keep her grip tight, it'd be over, and then she could see-

Cat squealed as the little girl flailed in her grasp, pink-shoed foot lashing out into Cat's shin. The girl's feet scrabbled on the ground, face turning red, wet gasps escaping her as she tried to breathe. She threw herself back, Cat losing her balance at the movement, sending them both crashing to the spiderwebbed asphalt. Cat's hands slipped from the girl's neck, a raspy breath being drawn in. She kicked her feet, toes catching in Cat's ribs as the blonde child struggled to get out from underneath her. Cat's heart was jackhammering through her spine, and she realised now why her fight or flight instinct always kicked in. Because sometimes, she had to fight. She couldn't run. She never could. She'd be in so much trouble, so much. More than the time she scrawled lipstick all over the wall and her mother had slapped her right across the face. This little girl was messing everything up. She was making it so hard and she was doing everything wrong and all her stupid little kicks were going to bruise and Cat had to go to her swim meet on Tuesday.

Cat dragged herself forward, struggling to keep the desperate girl pinned. Her hand scrabbled at the cracks in the cold ground, trying to anchor her. She had to stop her from getting away. This place was a secret and no one was supposed to know about it and Jade would be so mad at her and not ever trust her again. And more than anything, Cat burned with a need to see what this child really was, because this kicking, fighting thing wasn't the crying girl Cat had led in here. "Stop it!" Cat coughed, voice petulant. There was a loud clatter as her fingers skittered over something rough and jagged. She snatched at it - a broken chunk of asphalt - and raised it as high as she could, until the muscles in her back screamed from the strain.

The little girl's second scream was cut just as short as the first, asphalt thudding into her skull with a sickening crack. Cat's ribs still burned, the child jerking underneath her as Cat brought the hard fragment down again, pads of her fingers pierced by the sharp edges of the chunk. The sound this time was wet, a gurgle coming from the now-still child. Cat let the bloody fragment fall with a clatter, bringing her stinging fingers to the girl's cheek. Cat licked her lips, searching the girl's face, most of it obscured by blood. "Are you there?" She turned the child's face from side to side. "Are you still there?" She whispered. The girl's eyelids flickered, her gaze drifting woozily. Her small frame gave a final twitch, small bubbles foaming on her lips as a long breath escaped. Cat searched the girl's eyes intently, thumbs pulling her eyelids back as they threatened to close. "Where are you?" She murmured, chewing her lip.

There! There it was! Tucked in behind the green of her eyes. Cat smiled, a wave of relief sweeping through her. It was beautiful. It was wonderful. There she was, a slim, wavering little soul, just for a moment, but it was a moment that filled Cat to the brim. Cat had taken her mask off, and seen something probably not even the girl's mother had seen. And then it was gone, sucked into a single point, like Cat's old television they'd had at her first house when you switched it off. Sucked into a little white hole, and then gone completely. She closed the girl's eyes, stroking her cheek gently, before pulling herself to her feet. She ached, and it hurt on the outside, but it felt good on the inside. It went all wrong, everything went wrong, but she felt satisfied. She'd seen it again, and it was just like she remembered. Beautiful, pure, innocent. Honest.

She examined herself, brushing off small pieces of gravel that clung to her. There really wasn't all that much blood. The wounds on her fingertips were shallow ones, pinpricks at best. It was just the flesh around them that ached, feeling bruised and pulpy. Most of the blood on her hands was from the girl, spattered over the palm that had held the chunk of asphalt. Cat cleaned up as best she could. She left the little girl in the small patch of light where they'd landed. She'd seemed to like it there. It was somewhere where she could watch the sky. Somewhere warm in this cold place.

Cat made it home without incident, scrubbing her nails clean of any rust-coloured traces of blood before painting them a soft pink. The same colour as the girl's shirt.

They found the body a week later. Cat had watched the pleas from the girl's mother on the news with great curiosity. It all felt so unreal. How could her mother not know where she was? She was just around the corner the whole time. She must not have looked very hard. The first Cat knew of them finding the little girl was from Jade, face incredulous as she told Cat about what had happened at their secret spot.

"I didn't even think anyone but us knew about it. How creepy is that?" Jade's eyes flashed. "They've taped it all off now. They're saying someone smashed-" Jade drove a fist into her palm. "-her head in. Can you imagine that? I mean, we were right there, right in that place where it happened." A grin spread across Jade's face. "How awesome is that? It's just a shame we can't go back there. It must have a real spooky vibe to it now."

Cat had smiled back. Jade had brought her into that place, made her a part of it, and now she'd done the same for Jade. She was privy to a secret she didn't even know about. Jade _had_ been there after all. In the stale cigarette butts and the empty bottles and the loose pieces of asphalt she liked to kick around. She'd been there in everything but flesh. It made Cat feel closer to Jade. She'd returned that same show of trust. They were friends. Jade had shown her the place, and Cat had made it a place worth remembering, and it was something they'd always share. The place where that little girl got murdered.

Her name was Alex. Cat remembered that later. Her first big butterfly.

/

**A/N: Reviews are always appreciated, unless they cast aspersions on my character. This fic has nothing at all to do with me, nor my own views on violence and murder and such things (for the record, I don't much care for any of those things). This is a work of fiction, not an autobiography. I understand that it's a rather fucked up piece of work, and that's absolutely what it's intended to be. Feel free to comment on any elements of the story, but please don't drag me into it.**

**I'd say I hope y'all enjoyed it, but... I kind of hope y'all didn't. So I hope you guys found it interesting, at the least.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Victorious is not mine. I don't even own a DVD.**

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><p>Alex.<p>

The word jumped out at Cat, loud and bright. Her fingers tripped on the page of the gossip magazine, flying to the striking yellow print. A celebrity Cat had seen in a film she couldn't remember the name of grinned on the page, looking at something Cat couldn't see. Something the camera hadn't captured. The woman was midstride, and if Cat looked closely, she could see almost all her teeth, shining and white and straight. A big smile, that made her eyes crinkle at the edges. Her mother's were short and small, confined to her lips and nothing more. She smiled like photoshoots, like she thought everyone was a camera who could photograph her, and she didn't want them to see the wrinkles, the flaws, that emotion tended to cause.

There was another picture further down the page, squished to the side and bordered in yellow. The actress had seen the camera by then, Cat guessed. Her smile was gone, eyebrows dipped down, staring straight into the lens. Cat couldn't remember the film she'd been in, but she knew now the actress was called Alex. It didn't seem to fit her. She was brunette, and tall, and her mouth was wide and her eyes were brown. Alex wasn't a name for her. Cat's fingers pressed over the letters, ignoring the rest of the headline that scrawled across the article, ending in an exclamation mark. Alex was a name for a butterfly. Cat smiled to herself. Thinking about it was like sharing secrets with herself, things she could barely say inside herself, let alone aloud. She'd let it ring out in a heartbeat, to hide the sound. It made it double secret, and secrets were something she loved. Whenever you found one out, it was like a little bit of that glaring truth, a momentary lift of the mask that covered everyone. It showed a little bit of themselves, not just what the actual secret was, but why they'd hide it, what they were scared of. Jade's secrets were her favourites. They were always the most surprising. Cat didn't have many of those though. Jade kept her mask clamped tight.

The page ripped easily, Cat tearing carefully, until finally she held the name in her hands, a tiny yelling strip. A silent scream of a name, in a yellow that made her remember.

The magazine slipped to the floor as Cat rose from her bed, crossing to her dresser. A cork board perched on the wall, covered in bright strips similarly torn from magazines, of pictures and words and sketches. A few photos of friends dotted the board. Robbie, caught in awkward mid-smile, having just seen the camera, a hand raised to wave. Beck and Jade, his arm slung around her shoulders, the tiniest wedge of a smile on his face, and none at all on hers. Andre grinned at her, a guitar resting on his lap, hand planted on its wooden body. They were all so lovely, all so different. Sometimes Cat wondered what they were underneath. If maybe underneath Beck, he was a Robbie, scared and awkward. If underneath Andre, he was a Jade, filled with coldness and venom. What if she lay underneath Jade? What if Jade lay underneath her? It was like a book Cat had when she was just a baby, presented to her proudly by her father with a chuckle, like he'd told her a joke in getting it. The book had three segments, made up of heads and torsos and legs. They all wore different clothes, and it was Cat's job to flip the strips around until someone was whole. She'd never really gotten the hang of it. Not with all of them. Some didn't look right whole. The fireman's pants looked better on the nurse than her skirt did. Her daddy scolded her for it, for not being able to figure everyone out. He told her that the book was a lesson. That people were mixed up from the start, and it was up to people like him, people like her to match them. To make sure they had the right legs and the right heads. That's why they came to him, to look more right. To make themselves match. It was his job to tell them why they were wrong.

A pin fastened the name to the board, next to a pink-edged picture of a sleeping kitten. This was her important board, started by the suggestion of her mother. She needed goals to work towards, and this board would remind her of why she should. A cloud of things to motivate her. Cat didn't think this was what her mother wanted though, judging from her sigh and crossed arms when Cat had presented it to her. With a wave of her hand, she'd turned into something that Didn't Matter. It still mattered to Cat, though. Her friends were important. They belonged to her, not anyone else. Love was important, pinned above Beck and Jade. Dreams were important, curling script pinned below Robbie. And animals were important too, of course. They were what she started with. She'd even pinned up a picture of a boy who looked a little like Frankie. His eyes squinted just the same way in the sun. She didn't have a picture of Alex. Maybe she should've saved one from the newspapers. Alex's face was everywhere then, in garish colours. But that hadn't really been her. No, Cat had seen the real Alex, and it was nothing like the smiling picture of the little girl lost. She was a butterfly's wingbeat, fleeting.

Cat smoothed the name out gently, making sure it was pinned tight onto the board. It was very important. She surveyed the rest of the brightly spattered surface, little shards of memory flickering in each item. Cat smiled. There was still plenty of room left. She just had to find more important things to fill it. Alex was just the start; there was a whole patch bare and brown underneath her.

In a month, that spot was filled, with a picture not dissimilar to the actress Cat had torn Alex's name from. A pretty brunette with dark eyes and a wide, easy smile peered out at her, hair curling around her shoulders. Tori. A new friend Cat had made, and one who was most like what she pretended to be. Bright and cheery and optimistic. She just didn't have the sudden snaps in attitude that Cat had. The red-headed girl was still working on transitions, on changes in mood. She hadn't got them down quite yet, but Tori was a natural. Cat loved to watch her; she was a new character to study. The way her smile turned from bright and beaming to flickering and fading was fascinating. It was the word 'disappointment' brought to life. Cat was a mirror for her, mimicking her actions at home, the smiles, the soft words, the easy way she moved. Cat had captured enough of the night from Jade. Beck carried the stillness of the dawn, Robbie waded on the edges of the day, the awkward times in between when the sun sunk halfway, and Andre was the cool evening, just before it slips into night. Tori was high noon, bright and shining. With them, Cat could be a whole day of a person. She could act like everyone else, if she concentrated. Mostly she just operated on echoes, dumbed down versions of personalities. Being a whole person was an immense effort.

She invited Tori over to her house one evening, not long after the brunette had started attending her school. Cat's parents were out at a show, her brother cloistered in his room, the sounds of gunshots and explosions murmuring from behind his door. The house was immense, dark, and Tori had wandered through it with wide eyes and careful hands. "And I thought my house was big..." She'd murmured, gaze fixed on the ceiling, like she was wondering just how high it really went, whether the stars themselves twinkled at the end. Cat was accustomed to the size. She didn't bother turning the light on; she liked the illusion of emptiness better sometimes. The modern furniture and the sharp paintings hurt her eyes. They were colder than the darkness. She felt much bigger with the lights off.

Cat's room was a rainbow in contrast. Bright and colourful and garish. Tori swallowed a word when she entered, a sixty watt smile flickering on her face. Cat liked her room. In some strange way, its complexity of colour and texture cleared her mind. The pictures of bunnies that hung on the walls, the hot pink cushion with thick synthetic fur; these were coatracks for her thoughts, for all the layers of behaviour she put on to face the day. She could shrug off the tatters of Jade, doff the fedora of Beck. Strip down naked until she was just herself, whatever that was.

"Who's Alex?" Tori's finger traced over the board, lifting the corner of the ragged name. "Are they a pet or something?" The brunette gazed at Cat curiously, politeness sewn into her words. Cat reminded herself that was what people did. They asked each other questions, because that was the way to do things. The answers very rarely mattered.

"She was a friend." Cat frowned as the sentence slipped out. It wasn't quite smooth enough. It still tasted like a lie.

"Oh... does she go to our school, or-"

"She died." Cat shook her head, the dim smile on Tori's face falling off. It was a beautiful thing to see. It was like reading her thoughts, being carried on her wave of emotion as it crashed to shore.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-" Tori fumbled her way around an apology, hands flailing as if to seek the right words from the air, pluck them from Cat's board and present them as an offering.

"It's okay. You don't have to be sorry." That was something that always confused Cat. How people apologised for things they'd never done, that they had no responsibility over. Why was Tori sorry that Alex was dead? She didn't even know her. Cat had barely known her, and she still wasn't sorry. Apologising for things that weren't anyone's fault only made real apologies weaker, thought Cat. If you use a word too often, it loses its meaning. That's why she'd pinned the name up, so it wouldn't lose its varnish in her mind. So it'd stay shiny, locked away inside her, because she could see it out here, plain as day. She didn't have to dig it out of her chest and get her fingerprints all over it.

"What was she like?" Tori questioned in a cautious voice. A hushed voice, like a comforting arm thrown around Cat's narrow shoulders. She was talking in a funeral voice, edged in sweetness but with a bitter aftertaste.

Cat shrugged her shoulders. "She cried a lot."

Tori's face shifted subtly, Cat watching with interest. It was amazing, really. A slight dip of the eyebrows, a loosening of the jaw, and Tori went from gently curious to mildly confused. If Tori was high noon, this expression was a wisp of cloud scudding across her sky.

The brunette straightened her spine, turning away from the board with swinging arms, as if to shake off the previous subject. "So... what does your dad do?"

Cat twisted her mouth, eyes lingering over the bright yellow name before following Tori, where she wandered to Cat's bed. "He makes people."

Tori lowered herself to the mattress, a wrinkle appearing above the bridge of her nose. "Makes them into what?"

"Better people." Cat ran a tongue out over her lips, changing the tone of her voice. It needed to be lighter. She couldn't take all her layers off this time. She had to put one on, and this particular layer was bouncing nervously on her bed, feet kicking the floor. How had Tori sounded when she first walked in? What was the inflection...

"Did you wanna watch a movie?" Cat fluttered her eyelashes, hands coming to link together in front of her. Her voice was pure sugar, compressed excitement. Distilled Tori.

Tori grinned in response, perking up noticeably. But then every emotion she showed was so obvious. They lived in the muscles of her face. "Sure! What did you have in mind?"

Cat kept a smile on her lips. "Why don't you pick, and I'll get popcorn!"

Just like that, Cat had added another friend to her wardrobe, another character to her resume. Tori was easy to slip into, and what's more, it was fun being Tori. Cat figured Tori was just as much of a narcissist as her sister was; she sure seemed to love Cat, and Cat was just playing the part of a mirror. It made the brunette easy to talk to. Throw enough exclamation marks on the end of a sentence, and Cat could say nearly anything and be met with a smile, albeit a confused one. It was amusing to test her sometimes, to say something in a contrary tone, syrupy yet serious, and see Tori respond with patient bewilderment. She treated Cat like a little sister. Jade just treated her like a child, one that she'd had out of a desperate need to assuage her loneliness.

Yes, the arrival of Tori kept Cat busy for some time. The girl was a ball of yarn for Cat to unravel, to pull to pieces and learn how to make again. But a friend. She couldn't cut any of the yarn, couldn't slice and dice her way to the centre. Friends are for keeping. But Cat's deft fingers found the edges of Tori's mask soon enough, rubbery and close to the skin. She'd trace the edges of it sometimes, say things in a sweet voice that hurt Tori. Not in a way she could show, of course, but it was the conflict in her not to show it, not to acknowledge the hurt, that revealed where the mask began, where it clung to the contours of her face. With Tori in the forefront of her mind, Alex became just a name on her board. A fleeting memory of blonde hair and blood and something amazing. Something glimpsed for a second, that felt sweeter than any drink, any kind word, any soft touch. A whisper to her soul, a caress of the spirit. Her butterfly had been pinned in Cat's collection so long that Cat had forgotten what it'd looked like to see it fly, to see its wings beat, a flickerflash of colour. She'd stroked the memory so often that the delicate powder had come off in her hands, wings becoming dry leaves.

Cat's urge started to rise again. The urge to tear off another mask and see a face beautiful in it's authenticity. Not the duplicity that coated everyone's flesh now. Tori had been a fun distraction, a valuable lesson. Another mix and match to add to her book, but she was a friend. One to play with, not one to pin. Tori was a temptation, Cat admitted. All those beautiful muscles in her face that made up her personality. Cat wanted to peel back the skin and see them bare, see how their tiny motions made a person. But that was her Daddy's job. Cat would settle for finding a smaller substitute for the brunette. The only thing she'd have to peel back was the eyes.

All she needed was someone with an easy smile and high cheekbones.

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><p><strong>AN: I apologise for the slow updates on this fic. If I could write it faster, I would. Unfortunately, I tend to require a very specific mood to write this the way I have been, and that mood is capricious in coming. **

**Reviews are always appreciated, however. They are blankets on cold and lonely nights. Mainly because I print them out and sew a sheet from them. It's surprisingly toasty.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Victorious is not owned by me. Not even a smidge. Not even a wisp.**

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><p>The urge slumbered in her, occasionally waking to turn and curl up inside her once more. A bear in hibernation, that longed for the light of spring, and Cat was forming a plan to change seasons.<p>

Tori, oh how she wanted Tori. The girl was a masterpiece. A new toy, a new gadget with buttons to push, and Cat longed to snap her open and see what wires went where. She calmed herself, reminding herself that the same thing had happened with Jade, with Robbie, with all of her friends when first made. The pictures on the board were of the past, of memories already made. They were not of the future. Alex was set in stone. Her friends were the same. Their pictures merely served as the tombstones. There was nothing to be done with them but remember them as friends, and never anything more.

But Tori was not unique. She had her idiosyncrasies, but it was her face Cat longed for. And it took but months to find one like it.

"Your lips taste like strawberries."

The boy whispered, fingertips clumsy against Cat's cheek.

"Lipgloss." She giggled, capturing his mouth once again.

He tasted like sweat and beer, sour on her lips. His fingers weren't like her Daddy's, long and slender. They're blunt, stubby things, made for prodding, not sculpting. He's not an artist, not a musician. He's a boy, and he's nothing yet. Stubble grazes his chin as an afterthought, a reminder that he's on the cusp of manhood, but still standing it its shadow. That although his voice resonates deep, it's still given to the occasional squeak.

Tori had pointed him out across the foodcourt, where he sat chatting with his friends, eyes glancing over to their table often. "He likes you." Tori had teased, a hand on Cat's arm. Of course he did. Why wouldn't he? She was attractive. She knew this not in a conceited way, but as fact. Her Daddy dealt in science, in equations of beauty, and she ranked close to perfect. His eyes drew few dotted lines upon her. Few stitches of correction.

Eventually the boy had approached, a nervous hand rubbing the back of his head, a tuft of brunette hair left messily spiked upon its removal. His friends had laughed and jostled each other, and he'd awkwardly complimented the peculiar shade of Cat's hair. Tori had fawned over the comment, nudging Cat with a pointed gaze, but it wasn't until the boy had smiled that Cat had taken notice. His teeth were straight and white, lips full. The grin he gave was easy, at odds with the nervousness he displayed. A wide, genuine smile that touched his eyes. A smile just like Tori's.

Cat had beamed back then.

He had a car. A beaten up white beast that bellowed smoke, engine grumbling as it turned over. Tori had waved goodbye, a conspiratorial smirk on her face. She would demand to know every little detail later. That was what friends did, Cat knew. And she'd oblige. She'd recount every kiss and touch. They didn't matter much to her. They were a means to an end, and they had yet to be more. Her lips knew only stage kisses, but they acted them well.

Their first date had consisted of burgers and half-eaten words. He played football, but not well. He liked history, but was no good with dates. He was sweet, and the only thing of note about him was how very average he was. He kissed her in his car, and his nose had bumped hers and his lips had been just a little too hard, a little too eager. It felt like a first kiss, a very first. That was something she never got right in plays. That jittery nervousness. This boy had it in spades.

The second date was Cat's plan. She'd picked out everything perfectly. She'd told Tori that she'd seen the boy. That he wasn't her type. That he was rough with his hands and harsh with his words. She'd told the boy to keep quiet, her parents didn't let her date. Don't even tell your friends. He'd promised solemnly, with all the sincerity of the boy still left in him. He was much more like Tori than she'd first thought. The similarities ran deeper than the smile. If it wasn't for her urge, if it wasn't for his mediocrity, she could've added him to the safety of her friends. But no, she had enough friends. Her butterfly collection was meager still.

She giggled as his lips found her neck, touch too light and brief. A testing of her waters. He gave a nervous laugh too, brushing away an errant lock of her hair from where it spilled on her cheek. His breath shivered in his lungs, a wingbeat of sound. His laughter was nothing but air, aped from her own sounds of amusement. His hands slipped away from her, one circling around a clammy can of beer that sat on a windowsill. His Adam's apple bobbed as he drank, the sound of swallowing loud in the quiet house. He crushed it with a crunch, tossing it to the dusty concrete floor. "Where did you find this place?"

It was Andre she had to thank for this place. A house still in the making, stunted in its construction. Halted by money woes, a company killed in its infancy. Any number of things, really. This house was just one of many, half-finished and abandoned. A neighbourhood of ghosts. Pre-ghosts, thought Cat. Haunted by no one ever living here. The house was bare beams and plastic tarps. Dusty sheets of walls, paint-speckled concrete floors. Any glass that had once graced the windows had been broken. It was where Andre had grown up. Not this house, but the one that had been here before. When his parents were still alive, and they worked themselves to death to keep him that way. The house had been a piece of shit. He'd said it with a laugh, a smile in the memory. He'd had a dog named Bosco. Andre never said what happened to him, and Cat wondered for a moment if she was what happened. It wouldn't have been the first pet she'd collected. After his parents' death, the bank had seized the house, torn it up, board by board, and made something that would never be finished. A grander house that would never be a home. He'd said it bitterly, fingers drumming the steering wheel of his grandma's car as they rolled past the silent houses. It had all the solemnity of a graveyard. Cat had figured it was the perfect place to inter someone. A house that could not have a life in it might as well have a death in it.

"Friends." Cat kept her voice light, fingertips trailing over a rough-hewn trestle table. A few empty, crushed cans of beer littered the pitted surface, their contents sloshing in the boy's stomach. He'd got his older brother to buy it for him. There was a certain pride in the way he said it, that Cat had heard before. A pride in being smarter than the law, in having something forbidden. It was pride she had herself, but one she couldn't brag about. One she couldn't hold up in salute before taking a long, appreciative sip. But every sip the boy took was followed by a slight grimace. He drank too desperately, eager to get it over with. He had the appetites of a man, but not yet the taste of one. He wasn't a forerunner, not an innovator. He was a follower, a sheep. A lamb to be led to the slaughter. Cat would make him more important, more remembered than any achievement he may have made in life would've.

"You're out of beer." She pointed it out with a giggle, a grin stretched wide on her face. Not too wide, that causes wrinkles. Her mother's voice was singsong in her head, a nightly lullaby.

"You're right." His words were slightly slurred, a drifting joy in his voice. His hands slipped over her shoulders, clumsy but warm. His hands were crude things, but strongly made. He reminded her of some great puppy, still waiting to grow into himself. But what a fine dog he'd make. Loyal, dumbly obedient. If she'd let him, he'd slobber all over her, paws scratching. Maybe killing people wasn't quite so different from killing animals after all. People were just bigger, louder, more complex. He dropped a wet kiss on her cheek, a smile in his lips. But add a bit of alcohol, a bit of immaturity. Add anger, or sorrow, or joy in any great quantity, and they turned back to beasts. They forgot their complexity in favour of feeling. Humanity was just a wall designed to pen up the bestial, and it didn't take much to break it down, and send those animals screaming into freedom.

Cat's mother had bought her 'Animal Farm' as a child. She'd glanced at the title, and the picture of farmyard animals, and assumed it was nothing more than another fairytale. Everyone knew adult books only dealt with the concrete. With murder, and sex and lies. They were always the ones in the bestsellers. Cat had read the book with difficulty. There were no pictures, and the print was small and cramped. She hadn't understood it. It was too much like real life, and too much like fake, at the same time. The only characters she'd really understood were the pigs. They spoke like her daddy. She'd liked them best of all.

"I'll get you some more beer from the car, 'kay?" Cat's hand played over the boy's stomach, flat beneath his t-shirt. She could feel his muscles twitch ticklishly at her touch. She realised, with a small spark of interest, that she could do whatever she liked with him. That he was putty in her hands, to be moulded as she pleased. She was sure he'd let her do anything she liked, bar the one thing she intended to do. People gave up so much of their control, so easily. It baffled Cat. Why would one give another influence over them? Did they do it without realizing? Did they only know how very much they'd given up when it wasn't given back to them? Affection was far too easy to abuse.

"Hey," The boy's voice was a rumble in his throat, made deeper and slower by the alcohol. Cat's eyes locked onto his face, onto his clouded brown eyes. "Hurry back, okay?" A lopsided smile twisted his lips. He really did like her, didn't he? Why her, and not Tori? Was it because she WAS Tori, and so much more? She was Jade and Andre and Beck and Robbie. She was everyone, all the very best parts. Maybe it was because she didn't feel like anyone else. Because she wasn't just one person,she was a collage.

His lips pressed against Cat's in a gentle kiss. His mouth was slightly cold, clammy. Whether it was from the chill or the beer or that of the air, Cat wasn't sure. She wondered how much colder his lips would get, once there was no blood flushing them. Her heart thudded at the thought, fingers flexing on his shoulders in excitement. The thought of killing him held much more passion than the thought of kissing him. He'd be a beautiful butterfly, a veritably valiant variety. She just had to slit open his cocoon, and set him free.

She picked up the boxcutter on her way to the car, fingers encircling it like some precious thing. A necklace box, with a glittering blade to sling around one's throat. It was another remnant of a life never lived in the house. Left behind by a careless builder, or painter, or electrician. Maybe by someone just like her. It was specked with paint, sharp beak of a blade peeking out the end. It felt heavy in her hand, a comforting weight. Time hadn't dulled it, for which Cat was grateful. She needed this to be quick. Her experience with Alex had shown her that. That she needed to be more prepared. Alex had almost escaped, almost wiggled her way free, despite her diminutive size. Panic lent a certain strength, and this boy was already much stronger than her. The alcohol would make him slow, it'd give her a few extra seconds before he grasped what was happening. And by then, if all went to plan, she'd ease him out, watch his wings beat behind his pupils as his heart ceased to beat at all.

It'd be messy, but there were already sheets on the ground. Everything was in place, she just had to work up the courage. She tucked the boxcutter in the rear pocket of her denim shorts, covering whatever stuck out with the back of her shirt. His car was unlocked, beer floating in the cooler that was stowed in his trunk. The cans were slippery in her hands, only a few beers left bobbing in the water. They were of different brands, different strengths. What he'd managed to scrounge and steal. Cat shut the trunk with an elbow, palms chilled from the cold metal of the cans. Her heart raced as she walked back into the dark skeleton of a house. The ice in her hands was nothing compared to the cold steel in her back pocket. It seemed much heavier than when she'd held it in her hands, increasing in weight with every step. Mixed in with the excitement, however, there was a certain discomfort. Something didn't feel right. It wasn't from some oversight, some flaw in her plan. It was something else.

This boy, this boy just like Tori, that she'd kissed and hugged and held the hand of. He was... it wasn't like with Alex. This boy was an almost-friend, edging onto the territory where Cat couldn't go. The one line in the sand she'd drawn, that she was never to cross. And she was left scrunching her toes in the sand, wondering which side it was she was standing on. She longed to see who he really was, who Tori might be, underneath all those layers of humanity, of lies and guile. She wanted to see what he was made of, what kind of butterfly lay dormant in him, whether it was as sweet as he was, or something hidden and bitter. She wanted to see that resounding truth inside him. To add some memento from him to her wall. The only question was, what side would he be on? Would he be among the friends, smiling and cheerful, or he would be a black and white cutout, loud letters pinned to a board.

She wanted his life, but did she want him to live?

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><p><strong>AN: Stay tuned for the next chapter. It's sure to be a doozy. Much like a tale of a degenerate oilman in California, there will be blood.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: Victorious does not belong to me, however, the murders are all mine.**

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><p>Mr. Valentine's study was of great interest to his curious daughter. No matter what house they resided in, one room was always kept for this purpose. It was where Cat's father spent the majority of his time when not working. Family dinners had long since ceased. Their resplendent dining table went unused, but for the rare dinner party her mother threw. Her father's arrival at home was a ritual unto itself. Sagging shoulders, made sharp by the cut of his suit jacket, laid bare at its removal. The soft click of the study door, followed by the louder clink of glasses and decanters within. Cat crept in sometimes, to rub the smooth and fine-smelling spines of all his important-looking books. She'd never seen one opened, and the gilt lettering on their uniform spines made determining their subject difficult. Her father used them for art, not purpose. His most useful materials were kept in his desk, in the deep bottom drawer that squealed when you dragged it open. To Cat, these books were like diaries, records of her father's life, of the matters he dealt in. There was one large book, thicker than the other, more battered medical bibles that resided in the drawer, and this Cat consulted most often.<p>

Its words were tiny and cramped as the others were, but these crawling passages were broken up with coloured illustrations. Cat found them curious, these images of muscle laid bare, veins plucked out and highlighted, bones filleted expertly with a pencil. The book was like one teaching the alphabet, A for aorta, B for brain, and Cat studied it with a naive interest. The text didn't interest her. Perhaps, had it been her book to take, she would've devoured every word, known the name for the things she now noticed in people. The shifting of their muscles, the flicker of their arteries, the sharp shapes of their bones. She could pick them out, from under the skin. She could see them as clearly as if they were part of the book, skinned in front of her. As she grew older, her interest diminished slightly, taken up by afterschool classes and homework. She still revisited the book though, as one does an old friend. She'd trace a finger over her favourite illustrations, skim a nail along a sinuous artery. The names felt exotic on her tongue. She stumbled over many of them.

It was this she had studied before her date, as an anxious girl studies a Cosmopolitan magazine on how to please her budding beau. She had chosen the neck, a graceful ring of muscles and arteries and bone. She had lingered over the little hyoid bone, wondering if she'd crushed Alex's, when her hands had wrapped tight around the girl's throat. But that approach wouldn't do for the large and clumsy boy. He was too strong, his neck too thick. Her gaze had turned instead to bright strips that ran either side of the neck. Red and blue. The thick carotid artery and the more slender jugular, nestled in among the thick muscle. Cat had seen enough horror movies to know what happened when you opened them up. A quick and messy death. It was the quick part that appealed to her the most. She'd considered poison, but she didn't know enough about the subject. What chemicals, what dosages, how quickly it would act. It might just send the boy to an endless sleep, and by the time she pried his eyes open they might just be misted glass, opaque. Or it might take hours, loud and painful hours, and it was never pain she sought to cause.

She recalled the illustration as the boy took a cold beer from her hand, cracking it open and tipping it back, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. It was dark, but enough light was cast for Cat to see a faint flicker in the boy's strong neck. A shivering shadow that marked out his pulse. All she had to do was press the blade there, and drag. As easy as bursting a water balloon, and with a similar result. Once it was done, it'd be quick. The trouble was in doing it. Cat shifted uncomfortably, boxcutter like ice in her back pocket, chilling her through. The boy set his beer down, gasping a breath as he lowered the now empty can. Spittle shone on his lips, spread in a wide smile. The ease of it twanged Cat's heart. It was Tori's smile, and while it was what had drawn her to the boy, it was also what repelled her. It was the smile of a friend, not of a victim. She longed for him to be the latter, she needed for him to be. It had been too long, far too long, since she'd pinned her last butterfly. She'd rubbed the sheen off Alex's wings, stroked until the memory was colourless. She needed this bright, beating boy. He wasn't a friend, he just looked like one, Cat reminded herself. And Cat knew by now you could never trust what someone appeared to be. They were just walking lies, continually told until they sounded true.

Cat had long debated with herself over the definition of truth. It was the subject she lingered on most, the most important matter she could think of. Her brain struggled with the concept of what made truth truth, slippery neurons unable to grip the meaning she sought so desperately. In a childish fit of frustration, for a child she still was, she flung the matter away, and focused on what she knew to be true. She remembered the flickering that resided behind her victims' eyes. That was truth, the only truth. It was perhaps the only real truth, and it was absolute. If Cat were to be asked what honesty was, she'd reply that it was in the eyes. That was a truth she told, yet it was a lie all the same, for the people that heard the response didn't grasp her meaning, and went away with an altogether different idea. They construed it as the immature answer of an idealist, when really it was only an answer of anatomy.

This boy, with his gentle eyes and blunt fingers. What lies was he telling, even now? In the licking of his lips, the shifting of his feet. He was a lie waiting to be proven, and Cat longed to make an honest man out of him. He wasn't a friend. That part was a lie. He had Tori's smile, Tori's kindness, but he wasn't her. His lips didn't taste anything like hers, his hands weren't anywhere near as finely made. He was a crude, craven imitation. Cat would cut him to his true shape, she'd see what he was meant to be.

He was not a friend.

He was a victim.

"Hey," His voice was a wet sound, slowed with spit. "What's wrong?" The boy's arms wrapped around her comfortingly, burning hot against her. Cat stiffened as his fingertips skimmed over her back pocket, relaxing as his hand settled on her lower back. She was thankful for his numbness. It not only dulled his senses, it dulled his curiosity as well. If there was one flaw Cat's plans always had, it was not accounting for the human element in them.

Her hands linked behind his neck, cheek pressed to his chest. The thin material of his black shirt reeked of beer, spotted with it. "Nothing. Everything's perfect." She murmured the words, closing her eyes for a moment. She was resolute in what she had to do, in what she wanted to do. Her momentary doubt had dissippated. She already had a Tori among her friends, she didn't need another one, and friend was just a suit this boy wore. 'Friend' was a mask she'd fitted on him herself, and it was a mask with Tori's smile grinning at her.

Still, as her intent solidified in her heart, making it thump and trip over itself with excitement, she felt a strange sort of regret. She took solace in his embrace, a comfort for a trauma that hadn't happened yet. He was a nice boy. He had an open warmth that invited a smile, an innocence that seemed out of step with the stubble beginning to darken his chin. He treated her with a certain sort of care, a burgeoning of feeling. He took the lie that she was for truth. He took it as gospel. Cat felt a certain sorrow about that. That he should have to find out the truth about her just as she found out his truth. She savoured the hug. She savoured his warmth, the animal vitality that pounded through him, exaggerated by the alcohol. She savoured the heat of flesh that would soon grow cold.

She took a deep, shaky breath, heart trembling in her chest. "I've got a surprise for you." The words started as a hoarse whisper, before steadying. She repeated the sentence louder, raising her head off his chest. His hips pushed into her as he swayed, a smile equivalent to laughter on his loose lips.

"You do?" His hands slipped away from her hips. "Is that why you went out to the car?"

Cat's cheeks hurt from smiling, muscles fixed. "Mhm." She licked her lips, eyes flicking down. It was easier to talk when she couldn't see Tori in him, when she couldn't see the friendmask. "But you can't look, 'kay? It's a surprise!"

The boy shook his head groggily, eyes bleary. "I won't look."

"You promise?"

The boy's index finger dragged across his chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

Cat's chest felt tight, every inhale just a sip at air. "Close your eyes."

The boy complied, a low rumbling laugh in his throat.

Cat circled around the swaying boy, a hand stroking between his shoulderblades. She viewed the boy with a certain fascination. That it should be this easy, this simple, when the last time was so hard. But then, Alex hadn't really trusted her. She'd had only the fragile trust a child holds for any adult, easily broken when challenged. Perhaps her mother had already started to teach her that strangers were not to be trusted. A lesson Alex had learned too late. This boy... he really did trust her. The thought came to her with a sense of wonder. It wasn't just the alcohol, amplifying any feelings of love and affection, it was the boy himself. He trusted that her feelings matched his, not from a sense of ego, but a natural confidence. It lived in the spine she stroked, the broad shoulders her lips touched against, shaking. Perhaps she had been wrong. Perhaps this boy would've been something great.

Her hand touched over the hard length in her back pocket. She giggled, reaching her other hand to cover the boy's eyes, the boy's fingertips touching the back of her hand before dropping away. "No peeking, 'kay?" She murmured the words, her smile faltering as the boy stooped a little. He was trying to make the job of covering his eyes easier, to lessen the strain of her stretch to reach him. The human element Cat always failed to account for appeared yet again. She hadn't expected him to make it easier. She wondered what it was the boy expected. Food? Some physical act? Some present that had dropped from his lips in passing, that he thought Cat had gathered and granted? Cat felt a faint longing that he'd die in this state of hopeful anticipation. She hoped he wouldn't die like Alex.

Her hand slipped away from the boxcutter in her pocket, moving instead to the boy's lower back. This wasn't the final part of her plan yet. The boy moved clumsily, prompted by her prodding, her hand bumping his face at the uneven movement. A touch from him, a light plucking, removed her hand, and his own moved to cover his face. His voice was almost an imitation of hers, light and laughing. "No peeking!"

Her own laughter was a whisper, a ghost of his.

She propelled him to a cheap plastic chair, legs scraping as the boy's calves bumped against it. He sat down unsteadily, a tortured crack sounding from the worn plastic.

"When do I get to open my eyes?" He spoke from between his hands.

"Soon." Cat gave his hair a soft pat, before easing his hands down. "But not yet, 'kay?"

His hands drummed impatiently on his knees as Cat stood behind him, a tight feeling clenching in her chest. It was a mixture of excitement and nausea, a giddiness close to hysteria. She was an addict about to get her fix. She surveyed the boy, trying to find what way would gain her the biggest hit.

Her right hand found the boxcutter in her pocket, pulling it out. The steel was slightly warm, heated by her body. The triangular blade glinted as she slid it out. Her other hand found the boy's chin, tilted his head back. He resisted for a moment, eyebrows furrowing, before his trust and affection overcame his better judgement. The angle was awkward, noses bumping, but Cat's lips found his, a smile fixed onto them, a substitute for the laughter she could no longer give. He returned the kiss with an eager enthusiasm, lips trying to follow hers as she pulled back. She'd used the time to move the blade to his neck, almost tickling it. With his throat taut and straining, she drew the boxcutter across swiftly, dragging as deep as she could.

The skin split easily beneath the still-sharp blade, wound gaping. The blood was immediate. A thick spurt spattered the boy's twitching hands, the sound like rain on the plastic sheeting. It gushed with every beat of the boy's pumping heart. Even now, he was helping her. Cat dropped the leaden boxcutter, hand hot with the boy's blood. Another paint splatter in the abandoned house. The boy uttered a low, whimpering groan, hands fluttering to his neck. Cat grabbed a length of the plastic sheeting, the end ragged about her knees. It wouldn't do to get too much blood on her. She edged around the bleeding boy, curiosity on her face. Confusion was on his, hands held in front of him, gloved with his blood. He made an attempt to stand, only succeeding in spilling himself from the chair, plastic splintering at his spastic movement. A wet cough expelled itself from him, his breath a bubbling wheeze. His limbs trembled, the most that they could do now. Cat eased herself near him, laying the plastic sheet down gingerly on the spreading pool of blood that gushed from him. She lowered herself to her knees, leaning over the boy to push his shoulder, rolling the shuddering boy onto his back.

Her name stuttered on his lips, unintelligible, eyes rolling back in his head. Blood foamed on his mouth, chest heaving with the effort to breathe. Blood spurted strongly from one side of his neck, to a beat Cat could almost count. Her blade had sliced deep on that side, severed the thick artery. The end of her cut had been shallower. A nick not a slice. Blood streamed from that wound steadily, a thread compared to the rope that stemmed from the other side. Her hands found one of his, resting limply on his stomach. Her fingers entwined with his gently. His fingers seemed more blunt than ever, unable to perform more than a slight twitch. Cat watched his face intently, leaning forward, breath held. The boy's face was drained of colour by now, a chalky white, but for the crimson bloom of his lips. His breathing was slower, a heaving effort that rattled in his throat, ending in a wet cough more often than not. Cat released his limp hand as the boy's eyes fluttered shut, her fingers finding his cheek. They left behind a streak of the boy's bright blood. She called his name softly, the sound and her touch rousing him. It was with an effort that he opened his eyes, gaze drifting until it found her. He focused with difficulty, the effort betrayed by a slight furrowing of his eyebrows.

"Look at me." She whispered, leaning in closer.

The boy moaned, eyelids fluttering again. Cat drummed her fingertips on his cheek, stirring him yet again. The blood oozed more slowly from his throat now. His heart was failing. The boy's gaze drifted, almost dreamily. He squinted slightly, as if trying to catch sight of something half-seen, something far distant but rapidly approaching. Cat watched, rapt, teeth sunk deep into her lip, as if she feared to make a sound. It was coming.

The boy's chest shuddered suddenly, blood spraying his lips as he coughed weakly. The breath gurgled in his throat, almost a sob. And there. There it was, formless, behind his eyes. Cat could see him, all of him, and how had she ever thought him ordinary? He was shining, and golden. She saw what he would've become. A fleeting regret settled on her brow for a moment, a regret that death was still necessary for her to be able to see this. To see in death what should've been in life. This boy, this shadow of Tori, wasn't like her at all. How could she ever have thought that? This boy was much more than he ever seemed to be.

As quickly as it had come, that flicker receded. The light stole from his eyes, a television switched off, reduced to a single point, and then gone. Cat watched for a moment longer, breath burning in her lungs. There was nothing.

She sat back, a wave of euphoria sweeping over her. The room seemed brighter, the air crisper. The boy had died beautiful. He'd died pure. There seemed no greater crime to Cat than an instant death, no greater injustice than a death unseen. She'd carry the memory of that boy, of who that boy really was, with her for as long as she lived. And maybe, maybe when she died, someone would glimpse him in her. Maybe they'd see every truth she'd learnt, flickering behind her eyes. She wondered if she'd be able to see it herself, to hold a mirror to herself at the last, and see who she really was.

After a time, she began to clean up. She did this numbly, automatically, eyes unseeing. The boy's burning truth smouldered in her, glorious. She stepped gingerly over the boy's limp body, stooping to pick up the bloody boxcutter. Blood speckled her top. She'd prepared for this eventuality. She stripped quickly, using the material to wipe clean the boxcutter. Its weight seemed almost unbearable in her hands now. Its purpose had been served.

She wrapped her top around the cold length, walking tentatively through the dark house to where the bathroom had been so ambitiously planned. She dropped the boxcutter into one of the holes driven into the ground, where a pipe ran to join a system it would never use.

She found her handbag among the empty cans of beer, from where she'd steered the now-still boy. An empty paintcan served as a makeshift bin, a squirt of lighter fluid and the spark of a lighter taking care of the soiled top. Her shorts weren't untouched, but they were salvageable. The blood was almost invisible on the dark denim.

Cat had an extra top nestled in her bag. She replaced the lighter fluid and the lighter carefully. Some time into her task she had realised she was humming. Some song she'd heard lilting on the radio, when the boy had driven her here. She'd have to look it up once she got home. The boy himself required little attention. She left him with a soft apology, for the creature he had really been and now never would be.

She took a moment outside the house, the soft noise of insects the only sound in the abandoned streets. The skeletons of other houses surrounded her, dark and silent. A great graveyard full of people that would never occupy it. It seemed a fitting place, to her. A dead boy in a dead house.

The boy's car was easily disposed of. She drove it with some small difficulty. She knew how to drive, but the opportunity to do so didn't arise often. She left it in a neighbourhood that would find it much more useful disassembled. A lonely bus trip, and she was close enough to home to walk the rest of the distance. Her plan had gone off without a hitch. He'd been everything she hoped for. More, even. She hadn't dreamt such magnificence dwelt in the boy.

Why then, when she crept into her room, house silent, did tears begin to form? Why, as she showered, did she find herself shaking, dry sobs in her throat? Why did that hand, that right hand of hers, never seem quite clean. She scrubbed at her nails viciously, trying to scour every trace away. All she could see was red. His blood seemed spattered on every surface. The white tiles of her bathroom, the garish pink of her quilt. She became convinced that at some point, his blood had stained her very eyeballs. It was like watching dust motes swim in the air, almost unseen, but niggling. She could see it even when she closed her eyes, a bloody night sky in her head. She hadn't planned for this.

Sleep was hard come by. She'd lay in bed, blankets tucked around him, and thought of him. Of all he had been and never known. Of the light she'd seen in his eyes, clear and pure, like molten gold. It was something indescribable, something no language, Cat was sure, would ever be able to find the words for. No words could evoke the feeling, the searing joy, that truth burned into her. And this was why Cat had drawn that line, why she'd put her friends out of bounds. Because if she did kill them, she wouldn't feel a moment of regret. That truth was worth anything, it was worth everything.

Still, as she slipped into sleep, her lips shaped his name.

_Heath._

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><p><em><em>**A/N: Usually this is the place where I'd make some witty bon mot, but I'm sleepy. If you're dearly missing my rambling anecdotes about misunderstandings with animals and being in states of partial undress, make sure to grab my new book - '1001 Stories That Never Were'. It's packed full of things that never happened, never will happen, but that I insist ****_did _****happen. Although it's not for people under 18. My author's photo is a little risque, by which I mean highly illegal. In some countries it's actually considered a weapon.**

**Also this isn't a real book. The book is another thing that never was. I'm sorry for leading you on.**

**But if you review now, you might just make it into my new new book - '1001 Reviews that i got on stuff yeah cool'. It's universally lauded.**

**Because winters are cold and that book burns for a good three hours. The actual book itself is not... most of it's just 'Update!'.**


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